As I mentioned in my most anticipated films of 2013 list, director Steven Soderbergh (CONTAGION, HAYWIRE, MAGIC MIKE) has stated that after the release of his Liberace biopic for HBO and his final theatrical film, SIDE EFFECTS, he will be retiring from directing movies. As I also speculated in my most anticipated films of 2013 list, it was my belief that because of this, Steven Soderbergh would try to give us the best movie possible to go out on. Is SIDE EFFECTS perfect? No. But what it is, is a brilliant melding of Soderbergh's cold, clinical style with a Hitchcockian thriller that could get even Norman Bates on the edge of his seat.
Written by Soderbergh's recent writer of choice, Scott Z. Burns (THE INFORMANT!, CONTAGION), the film stars Jude Law as Jonathan Banks, a big city psychiatrist. His life is wonderful: he has a lovely wife and son, a budding practice and a new contract with a pharmaceutical company to help test a new, experimental drug. This is until he meets Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), a depressed 28 year-old who husband (Channing Tatum) was just released from prison for insider trading.
Emily was brought to the hospital after driving her car straight into a parking garage wall. She promises Banks she isn't a danger to herself or to anyone else, and to get him to release her she promises to start sessions with him. While meeting with Banks, Emily tries a series of anti-depressants to no avail. Just by chance, at a conference Banks speaks with Emily's former psychiatrist Victoria (Catherine Zeta-Jones), whom Emily stopped seeing because she lost her health insurance after her husband went to jail. Victoria suggests that Banks try a new anti-depressant called Ablixa, to which he agrees begrudgingly after Emily has another incident. And it works wonders! Emily's life starts to get back to normal and she seems happy again. But the drug has some serious side effects. And one night, acting under the influence of Ablixa, Emily does something that changes her and Dr. Banks's lives forever.
While that sounds like a ton of the plot, that actually only sums up about the first 30 minutes. And sadly, it's hard for me to say anything else about the movie without risking serious spoilers. Like Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO before it, the marketing behind SIDE EFFECTS has been intentionally vague and aptly so. And like PSYCHO, SIDE EFFECTS is also a taught, well-crafted thriller with something deep and important to say about mental illness and, in the case of the latter, the pharmaceutical industry whose job it supposedly is to help those afflicted.
No matter what you think of Steven Soderbergh, all of his movies are gorgeously done. With his patented muted color palette and still camera, he is able to create a world that feels incredibly realistic. It's cold, concise, uncaring. And yet, by using an extremely shallow depth of field almost exclusively, Soderbergh is able to draw a haze over the entire work. Fuzzy lights pervade and Soderbergh often sets a point of focus to have his, at first, blurry stars walk into and out of. It's a brilliantly inspired decision that allows you to see and feel exactly what these characters are going through as they slip farther and farther into madness.
It also doesn't hurt that Soderbergh has the clout to put together a cast that is completely aces. Besides Catherine Zeta-Jones as you've never seen her before and Channing Tatum who is able to deliver a wonderful performance, stripped of all the sexuality and masculinity that he's become famous for (a patented, and wonderful trademark of Soderbergh's), the two main stars of the film are brilliant. Jude Law as Jonathan Banks plays paranoid and obsessed amazingly well, holding nothing back as his character spins farther and farther is a web of corruption and deceit. It's Rooney Mara, however, that's the real star. What she is able to do without speaking is incredible. What she lacks in physicality she makes up for in quiet intensity and sheer emotional presence.
While the film suffers from some bigger flaws near the end where it feels like it's racing to a finish, and some cliched thriller/crime drama tropes (I don't ever want to see another scene of a person looking at pieces of paper pinned to a cork board, connected by string), nothing can take away from the fact that SIDE EFFECTS is an intelligent, remarkably well-shot and acted thriller while managing to say something deeper about one of the more serious issues in today's culture. It's one of the those movies that's incredibly bittersweet. On one hand, it's an impeccable movie that anyone would be proud to call their final film. On another, it serves as just another reminder as to what we're losing with the retirement of one of the most talented directors working today. Either way, Steven Soderbergh is going out with a bang. And SIDE EFFECTS is an outstanding part one.
8.5 out of 10
