Film Review: Side Effects

Admittedly, I wasn’t entirely sold on Side Effects when I first watched the trailer. I hadn’t seen much of Rooney Mara (aside from Nightmare on Elm Street, which isn’t a great start). I was never the biggest fan of Jude Law either. Safe to say I wasn’t over-excited.

Nothing in this film is at it seems, which seems only natural given its topic of mental illness and prescription druggery. The titular side effects are merely the beginning of an exploration into the characters’ minds and motives, and their convoluted relationships with one another. Rooney Mara’s Emily is a ‘wounded bird’, worn down by four years of waiting on her husband (Channing Tatum) being released from prison on insider trading charges.

His release only sends her further into depression, and after a supposed attempted suicide, she’s prescribed new trial drug Ablixa by smugly sympathetic shrink Jonathan Banks (Jude Law). Banks begins to suspect that her story is as straightforward as it appears. He delves into her history, encountering her former psychiatrist Victoria (Catherine Zeta-Jones) whose coldly efficient smile never quite meets her eyes.

There are several points in the film where I thought I’d grasped what was going on, and at each point I was proven wrong. I enjoy a good conspiracy thriller, but too often they’re let down by hokey twists or gaping plot holes caused by some serious artistic license. In this instance the distant, detached nature of the film stops us from getting too involved in the characters themselves. It’s then up to the story itself to keep the viewer intrigued, and that, it certainly does. One crucial turning point prompted a few gasps from the audience, myself included.

Greed and deception are running themes throughout the film, although it’s never played in a heavy handed way. It manages the challenge of being satirical without being annoyingly smug, and deals with the issue of mental health without treating it as a stigma. Everyone’s medicated, and people freely discuss their own medicines of choice. However it’s what lies beneath Mara’s frightened eyes, Law’s benevolent family man persona and Zeta Jones’ chilly detachment that’s really interesting.

It’s here that our own detachment towards the characters pays off; I was never entirely sure who to be rooting for, which allowed the story to unfold without too much emotional involvement. At times it can be a little too clinical for its own good, and the frustration felt by everyone is certainly palpable when the story throws us yet another curveball. Still, it’s an engrossing watch, well constructed and the ensemble cast are all uniformly excellent.

I’d often found Steven Soderbergh’s films never lived up to the hype, and were always a bit too sterile for my liking. No one in this film is especially likeable, everyone is accountable for something and a clinical directorial style is entirely fitting for a film about the American pharmaceutical industry. In this instance, these factors actually work in the film’s favour.

Words: Adrianne Calgie