The following review makes reference to the 2013 film Side Effects, and does not contain spoilers of any type.

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Year: 2013 Category: Psychological Thriller. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Cast: Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Channing Tatum, Vinessa Shaw, Ann Dowd.

Plot

Emily suffers from depression and consumes many and varied medications, which causes very damaging side effects, something that harms the career of her psychiatrist, Dr. Jonathan Banks.

Opinion

The film tells the story of Emily Taylor, who experiences depressive episodes after her husband Martin Taylor leaves prison after 4 years, which motivates her to attempt suicide by crashing her car against a wall. This causes Dr. Jonathan Banks, a psychiatrist, to treat Emily medically, but not before consulting with Dr. Victoria Siebert about the case, since she was Emily's psychiatrist some years ago when Martin went to prison.

Slowly the story shows us how Emily must deal with the different side effects of the medications and antidepressants that are prescribed by Jonathan, who in turn receives money from drug companies for prescribing the medication. From this point of view the film seems a criticism to pharmacists, psychiatry and the entire medical and judicial system, however, a violent event in which Emily is involved affects the career of Jonathan and later his personal life with his wife, Deirdre Banks, and her son.

In this way the film, which until then was basically a criticism of the system, becomes a thriller, and does so not only changing the meaning of the events, but also alters the point of view from which the story is told, to finally include a series of flashbacks that explain everything.

The director, Steven Soderbergh, who also directed Unsane, does well here, takes the viewer down a path and then changes things, giving a new meaning to what the viewer was seeing. The performances are good too, Rooney Mara makes it great, but everyone does an acceptable job, Jude Law was a good choice for the film, his personal charisma makes us not totally hate his character in the first half of the film, something that is important for the development of the following events. Channing Tatum and Vinessa Shaw have a smaller participation, but their interpretations are convincing without being necessarily outstanding, however, I think that Catherine Zeta-Jones did not do her best participation here, it does not totally convince me, especially in the second part of the film, but it's fine, it's not a fundamental mistake either.

In short, it is a film that at first seems to be something, a criticism of the pharmaceutical and judicial system and the excessive consumption of drugs in America, and that suddenly, with a big twist, becomes a thriller.

Trailer

Score

8/10

Good direction, good script, good interpretations, and a deceptive story that seems to be something but ends up being something else. At the time of publishing this review the film is available in the Netflix catalog for the following countries: Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea and Sweden.