HBO Max’s short documentary The Devil Is Busy, produced by Soledad O’Brien (SO’B) Productions and co-directed by Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir, is a searing portrait of what it means to provide and seek reproductive health care in the post-Roe era. At its center is Tracii, a staff member at Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center—now renamed the Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation—whose workday begins long before sunrise. Her mornings are marked by both practical vigilance—ensuring the safety of the clinic and its patients—and private prayer that sustains her through a job fraught with protest, legal restriction, high stress, and real danger.

The film captures the tense choreography of daily life at the clinic: security guards patrol parking lots, staff screen patients to comply with increasingly complex laws, and protesters wield megaphones and scripture as tools of intimidation. Yet amid this hostility, the documentary emphasizes compassion—the small gestures of reassurance that Tracii and her colleagues offer women at their most vulnerable moments.

One of the film’s strengths is its refusal to simplify. Hampton and Gandbhir juxtapose the deeply religious convictions on both sides: the protestors outside invoking God’s will, and Tracii herself leaning on prayer for strength and protection. Rather than pitting these perspectives against one another in caricature, The Devil Is Busy highlights the raw humanity—and the stakes—that underlie them.

The documentary also insists on the larger realities: patients who must travel hours across state lines, women who face rejection or legal delay even in emergencies, and caregivers who knowingly shoulder the risk of violence and stigma to keep the doors open. Through these stories, the film underscores a sobering truth: in today’s America, accessing reproductive care is as much about endurance and courage as it is about medicine.

At 31 minutes, The Devil Is Busy is a compact, but powerful reminder of the fragile state of reproductive rights. It quietly illuminates the daily grind of those who refuse to abandon women in need. The result is a film that lingers for its raw honesty about the precarious intersection of faith, law, and healthcare.