Side Effects

It seems prior to the release of every Steven Soderbergh film of the last few years the press have reported that this will be the director’s last presentation as he’s retiring and hanging up his megaphone for good. After the cinematic abomination that was Haywire there would have been some celebrations if Soderbergh had quit there and then for good. However, he got some of his reputation back with Magic Mike and now he impresses with the sharp Side Effects. To say too much would be to give the twists in the story away but, to use the opening third of the film as a starting point, shortly following a failed suicide attempt Emily (Rooney Mara) is released from hospital into the care of psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) with the proviso that she attends sessions with him on a regular basis. With the sessions not having their desired effect Jonathan contacts Emily’s old psychiatrist Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who recommends that Jonathan prescribe a new anti-depressant drug called Ablixa. However, some serious side effects later means that Jonathan’s career is in the medical bin. I’ll stop there so as to not ruin what happens next, but this is a clever script, containing a Psycho-esque plot twist and a revelation towards the middle that suddenly turns the film on its head and shifts the film onto a completely different track. Though I hinted that this is a return to better form for Soderbergh, its Scott Burn’s script that does all the work here as Soderbergh does little with the camera. However, he sews the scenes of the storyline neatly together and gets good performances from all involved, though his recent style of making everything look as aesthetically natural as possible is starting to make things look like they’ve been done on the cheap. The aim is obviously to give the film a natural feel to complement a (relatively) everyday story, but the end result is looking like production values have been sacrificed and the film loses some of its visual gloss because of it. That aside though, this is a thinking person’s film and a great tonic for anyone with the blockbuster blues. It seems a review can’t go by without me making comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock, but this has many bearings of much of his output from the 1940’s and 1950’s, with a good dollop of Henri-Georges Clouzot thrown in.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict

Not a storyline that will have people rushing for the cinema, but this is Soderbergh’s best in a while. Rating: 7/10.