Side Effects

A killer thriller that weaves one twisted web
Side Effects is a film you can't really describe without giving anything away. Avoid the trailers if possible, make it through the slow build up and you will get quite a few surprises in the second half. Easily one of the best thrillers I have seen in a long time. Jude Law in his best performance in years as a psychiatrist and Rooney Mara, fresh off of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, knocks it out of the park again as his depressed patient. She has become one of my favorite actresses. Catherine Zeta-Jones is effective and Channing Tatum has little to do, but is adequate enough. Never boring and often surprising, if this is Steven Soderbergh's last movie, he went out at the top of his game.

Over the top, but Hitchcockian twists!
***No spoilers follow***
Sure there are a few things that don't quite follow, but if you are a fan of the old Hitchcock and Twilight Zone episodes, you will appreciate this suspenseful puzzler of a movie. Centered around a psychiatrist, his depressed patient, and a fictional medication, things devolve into a murder which we witness. From there, we are never quite sure what is true and what is not. Entertaining, suspenseful, and sure, a few loose ends but who's counting? A fun way to spend an evening, and after the show, you can explain the twists to our companion!

Soderbergh's passable Hitchcock-like thriller, doesn't always add up
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Steven Soderbergh's 'Side Effects', first appears as if it's designed as a critique of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. Ultimately, it becomes more like a Hitchcock thriller. It's a film that keeps your interest but you'll have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit, to appreciate it.

Rooney Mara (looking quite more appealing than her stint as angry Goth in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'), plays Emily Taylor, a seemingly depressed wife of her husband Martin (Channing Tatum), who has just come home after doing four years in prison for insider trading.

When it appears that she tries to kill herself by slamming her car into a wall in a parking garage, she's assigned to a psychiatrist, Dr. Jonathan Banks (winningly played by Jude Law). Banks is a fairly typical psychiatrist who prescribes one psychotropic medication after another, hoping that Emily's mood will change. Still feeling forlorn, Banks...

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