SIDE EFFECTS
Director : Steven Soderbergh
Year : 2013
Genre : Thriller
Rating : ****1/2
We are currently living in a very strange and abnormal world. A world where unlicensed medication and untested cures are being flogged around the planet like a global candystore and anyone is able to buy potentially dangerous chemicals under false pretences. Spam emails advertising the latest breakthroughs in hair growth or erectile dysfunction are constantly being sent from mysterious places and the stories of people taking these unknown elixirs only to meet a terrible fate are now becoming frighteningly regular. While not completely at the heart of story, this element is certainly in the background of 'Side Effects', the penultimate film from director Steven Soderbergh who manages to convey a sense of panic, desperation and insanity in a terrifyingly realistic way. Part mystery, part thriller, part intense psychological profile, 'Side Effects' is a master class in tension. Starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta Jones and Channing Tatum, the film is a beautifully acted, sometimes dangerously relatable tale that is sure to feature heavily at next years awards season.
Rooney Mara plays Emily, a severely depressed young woman who is struggling to deal with her growing anxieties and fears. Despite the recent release of her husband from jail, she continues to fall into bottomless pits of despair and her condition soon begins to threaten her sanity and even her life. Desperate to find the cure to her problems, Emily entrusts herself into the hands of Dr. Jonathan Banks played by Jude Law, who prescribes a dangerous drug called Ablixa which while proven to work, has vicious and unpredictable side effects. After taking the pill, Emily swings from emotion to emotion and the cure seems to have worked. However, things soon take a turn for the worse when while 'sleepwalking', she murders her husband in a brutal and vicious stabbing. With Emily plea bargained into an asylum and the career of Banks crumbling, the case appears to be closed. But not is all as it seems. Suspecting more than what meets the eye, the desperate psychiatrist fights to save his name, his practise and his own fracturing sanity. What follows is a sometimes disturbing investigation that shows the true nature of the tragic death and the lengths people will sometimes go to protect their lives and their own mental condition.
2013 has proven to be a very successful and memorable year for Steven Soderbergh. Having announced his retirement from directing in 2011, he has pulled out all the stops to make sure that his final year in the film industry will be his best and by God, he has done just that. Recently in cinemas we have seen the brilliant Liberace biopic 'Behind The Candelabra' and now we have the DVD release of 'Side Effects', two of his best ever films and to me, possibly his greatest. It is a huge shame that Soderbergh has decided to retire, but I am so glad that he is able to go out in such impressive style. 'Side Effects' showcases some his best work to date and the direction used is remarkable. With a rather loose story, 'Side Effects' is a definitive character piece, with every single revelation taking place due to the actions of a person and because of this, we are completely confined in the world of 4 people. This claustrophobic nature gives the movie a creeping air of doom and in a strange way, a mad sense of unpredictability and fear. The credit must go the actors who give their all, but Soderbergh's masterful direction allows us to enter the minds of each character while still keeping a distance from their respective intentions. It is this tension between mind and soul that makes 'Side Effects' so eerily compelling.
Rooney Mara is just mesmerising as Emily, whose depression and anxiety seems to know no end. Having suffered recently from depression myself, I easily related to her and this made 'Side Effects' quite a difficult watch at times. For me, I saw no end to my misery and the way in which she deals with her emotions almost matched mine exactly. It is as if scriptwriter Scott Z. Burns has been watching me over the past 3 months and just noted down everything I did. It is this realism and above all, respect that made 'Side Effects' so affecting. It would have been easy to make Mara's character a typical 'crazy person' who looks like they have just wandered of the set of 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. But Soderbergh and Burns understands that depression is an internal war, a fight between reason and heart and they hit a home run in portraying the loneliness and helplessness of the chasm of deep depression and stress. As an actress Mara has just continued to impress me and her depictions of the outcast and the lost is always engaging and extremely emotive. Of course, she is best known for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's remake of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', but to me, 'Side Effects' showcases her best performance to date.
Jude Law is equally as good as the desperate Jonathan Banks, whose life has been ripped apart by the actions of a patient. We as a society put too much faith in psychiatry and doctors and this film shows the stress that they must feel every single day. Thanks to the genius of the internet, we can now diagnose our own illnesses just based on flippant symptoms and a healthy dose of hypochondria. 'Side Effects' shows us in startling detail the pressures of medicine and the trust we put in strangers subscribing an unknown drug with such care free nature. Of course I believe we should have doctors and psychiatrists, but maybe we should think about the damage we are doing to our own bodies by putting these unknown and sometimes dangerous potions into ourselves. Law is pitch perfect as a doctor who puts his patients mental state first, but soon realises that his life may be more important. Turning from a selfless to a selfish figure within the state of 90 minutes, he brilliantly portrays the almost unconsciousness need for self preservation and sanity.
Looking at the trailer of 'Side Effects' you may think that the movie is purely and simply a story about the fracturing sanity of a young woman, but it really isn't. Almost resembling a Hitchcock film, 'Side Effects' takes multiple twists and turns and soon metamorphosises into something quite different. It is this unpredictability that makes the movie so thrilling and to me, it is one of the best mysteries of the year. With an almost ethereal score from Thomas Newman and a brilliant cinematographical style, 'Side Effects' is an adrenaline pumping, sometimes deeply moving film that is sure to affect millions across the world. Everyone at some point has felt as if they couldn't fall lower and this film perfectly shows the dangers and threats that can potentially obliterate our sanity. Conveying opinions about a hugely controversial issue without ever seeming patronising or forceful, Soderbergh taps into our a psyches and embeds the movie into the unconsciousness parts of our brain. The more I think about 'Side Effects', the more I love it and it is easily one of the best films of the year.
FOR ALL THOSE INTERESTED IN THE
PUNK/ALTERNATIVE MUSIC SCENE, THE UPCOMING BIRMINGHAM BAND 'DRAG' IS IN NEED OF SUPPORT TO
HELP FUND THE RELEASE OF THEIR BRILLIANT DEBUT ALBUM 'NEUROTICA : A COMPENDIUM
OF TALES REGARDING BODY AND SOUL'. GO ON, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO :
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