Rating: 7/10
Released: March 2013
Certificate: 15
Directors: Steven Soderbergh
Genre: Thriller
Cast: Alfred Hitchcock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lynne Ramsay, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum and Julia Roberts.
Summary: Having been a successful couple Emily (Rooney Mara) and her husband (Channing Tatum) have hit a rocky patch after his recent release from prison. Emily is then treated for depression following a car crash and is put on a new drug which is on trial.
Steven Soderbergh who has directed films such as Ocean’s Eleven and Magic Mike along with the successful television series Grays Anatomy has once again created another entertaining film in Side Effects.
Side Effects begins with a title stating “Three months earlier”. Here we meet a young, attractive, middle-class couple, Emily (Rooney Mara) and Martin (Channing Tatum). She’s visiting him in jail where he’s completing a four-year sentence.
Image: Emily and Martin.
It is not till after Martin is released from jail does it become apparent that their marriage is in jeopardy. Emily becomes depressed by this and attempts suicide by crashing her car. She fails and is then referred to psychiatrist, Dr Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who has a private practice and is happy to put his wife on beta-blockers to calm her down for a business meeting. Soon after Emily is put on a course of medication for here depression problems begin to arise such as not being able to sleep and having up and down days. Dr Banks then puts her on a drug that is currently on trial however like with all drugs there are side effects.
Image: Emily.
Here we are lured into a film about corruption, mental illness and chaos as Dr Banks tries to treat Emily and cure her. The film takes many unexpected twists in which we find out that Emily has previously been treated for depression before by a Doctor named Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and how previous drug trials have had serious side effects.
Image: Dr Jonathan Banks and Victoria Siebert.
Side Effects is a great film that plays with moral ideas and unearths disturbing revelations in an entertaining and intelligent way, this is mainly why I would recommend it however it does jump scenes on several occasions making the plot hard to follow.