Rating: Rated R for sexuality, nudity, violence and language
Emily and Martin are a successful New York couple whose world unravels
when a new drug prescribed by Emily's psychiatrist - intended to treat
anxiety - has unexpected side effects.
After suffering through the doldrums of films such as "Bullet to the Head", "Parker", "Movie 43", and "Hansel and Gretel" I am finally happy to say that we have the first truly great film of 2013. "Side Effects" is director Steven Soderbergh's (Magic Mike) last film surrounding a married couple trying to rebuild their marriage following a spouse's release from prison. One of the spouse's begins using anxiety medication to deal with the consequences of her husband's return and then everything begins building out of control. From the start "Side Effects" was a film I was really interested by as outside of "Magic Mike" (Which I refuse to watch based on principle), Director Steven Soderbergh has proven time after time how well he can do with different genres from spy thriller, to coming of age story he's done it all and while "Side Effects" was a really great thriller the film does have some of its problems and that's really just in the pacing of the story, but it doesn't effect the overall quality of the film.
The story of this film grabbed me right from the beginning, a conspiracy film about psychiatric facilities is something I can honestly not remembering seeing ever done before and just felt different from the other mind numbing thrillers that come out these days. Also from the TV spot and trailers the film felt to have an Alfred Hitchcock vibe too it which can honestly never be a bad thing for a movie. The main problem I said I had with the movie is the pacing and that is right at the beginning. The beginning of the film focuses on us being introduced to all of these characters, but until one incident its played out pretty dryly and can get a little boring at time. Also this is a film you have to pay attention to the dialogue a lot in as their is not a lot of action. After the film its hard for me to remember some of the things that happen because it would be just endless transition of dialogue scenes throughout the movie. As I said once a certain incident happens in the movie that brings the real plot forward the film gains a lot of momentum. The film offers up a lot of twist and turns that I didn't see coming and when a film can be unpredictable I give it a lot of credit for that. The conclusion of the film (Spoiler-free) was brilliant, I feel the last two acts of the film were almost flawless as everything tied up together.
The cast is lead exceptionally by Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes) as they give some of the best performances of their career. They both were able to play characters who required a lot of switching of motivations and whatever their character called for they were able to deliver top notch on that. Channing Tatum who has started to see his star rise also stars in this movie as Rooney Mara's husband, but he doesn't play a huge role in the movie and in all out honesty his character probably could of been played by anyone else but he was fine in the role nothing special. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the former psychiatrist of Rooney Mara's character and I thought she was pretty good in the role, I am usually not a big fan of her work but I thought she did what she needed to in the role. Sort of like Channing Tatum she did nothing special in the film but no complaints on either of their ends as well. Another thing as with these four characters in the film, the main spotlight is focused on them so the rest of the characters in the film come of as two dimensional and really feel like they are their just to feel roles which can make it weird if Jude Law without the main cast is sharing a scene with an outside character and it just feels out of place. I feel the background characters could have been written a little bit better, but they were fine as well.
With this being Steven Soderbergh's last film I honestly can't imagine a better film for him to go out on. "Side Effects" has anything a genre fan loves with interesting characters to twist and turns all layered on an interesting story ensures a good time with this film. The film does drag pace wise at the beginning, but once you hit the main essence of the story the film grabs you on the edge of your seat until the very last shot of the film. Overall, I believe this is a film people should check out in theaters as a lot of people don't know about this film and has garnered a less then stellar marketing campaign against "identity Thieves" and I fear the less and less films like these will be made if they continue to under-perform like this.
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