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Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/111814
I Feel Tricked
Side Effects (Rated R)
by HEATHER GRIFFITHS
Side Effects (106 minutes) seems like one kind of movie, but it turns out
to be another. If you like to go into mystery/thriller type movies unspoiled
you should probably put the review down and back away slowly. You have
been warned.
As is customary in my reviews, there is an automatic onestar deduction for the appearance of Channing Tatum in a
speaking role. Looking at him on screen, I get the sense that
right before he went on camera, girls in cheerleader outfits
were wiping him down with towels. I just think the effort of
forming intelligible words would make him sweat a lot.
Going in, I thought that Soderbergh would employ the same
documentary style he used to such great effect in Contagion.
Instead, this is a more conventional narrative with a twist
about half way through. It wasn���t terrible, but the twist was a
little too conventionally Hitchcockian for my taste.
Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is married to Martin (Tatum).
He is about to get released from jail after serving some time
on an insider-trading rap and she is feeling a bit stressed.
Once he gets home he wants to get back to work so she tries
her best to be supportive.
After some build-up she ends up in the offices of headshrinker Jonathan
Banks (Jude Law). Whenever I see Jude Law, I mentally repeat the phrase
Gigolo-Joe-What-Do-You-Know and wait for the scenery chewing that will
inevitably follow. Banks offers her some anti-depressants, but they don���t
work very well so he tries some other stuff and eventually brings her former
therapist Victoria Seibert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) in for a consult.
Seibert recommends a new pill and Banks can���t wait to cram it down his
patient���s throat. Emily experiences some side effects, so he prescribes something else. What with all the warning signs it was only a matter of time before somebody ends up dead, and the pharmaceutical industry���s version of
���The Twinkie Defense��� gets pulled out.
Just as promised, the film up to this point has been an indictment of
American reliance on pills to resolve issues that exist only because people
insist on living in unsatisfying situations. But wait! There���s more!
At the halfway point, the trial is wrapped up and everyone feels
suitably sorry for poor Emily, while Banks is left with a steadily
falling star and a rapidly dissolving reputation. At least, until he
starts to take a close look at Emily���s history.
He begins to connect the dots on a massive conspiracy, coming off as more and more obsessive and paranoid with each logical leap. But you���re not paranoid if they���re really out to get you.
After a few clever misdirections, it becomes increasingly clear that
something is going on ��� but what? Banks begins to see the connections but his unshaven, erratic, drug seeking behavior alienates
his colleagues and his wife until he is left with very few options.
Then, everyone blackmails each other for 30 minutes or so.
Trying to figure out where the twists were going was entertaining, but by the time the film climaxed I was sort of over the
whole thing. Now it just so happens that I agree that Americans
are over-medicated and the side effects from all the dope we���re taking demonstrates that the cure is often worse than the disease. However,
Soderbergh sort of undermines this idea with his conclusion and resolves
his film with a demonstration of how much power psychiatrists have over
their patients, identifying them as the problem more than the medications
they are prescribing. Overall, it is a film rendered unsatisfying
by being filled with unlikable characters being played by unpleasant actors.
Now showing at Wynnsong
HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing
7, Carmike 12 and Carmike
Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandMarket Fair 15.
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