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 Written by: Scott Z. Burns Directed by: Steven Soderbergh Starring: Jude Law Rooney Mara Catherine Zeta-Jones Channing Tatum Side Effects stars Rooney Mara as Emily Taylor, a struggling graphic designer in New York trying her best to make ends meet. For the last four years, her husband Martin (Channing Tatum) has been in prison for insider trading. Emily is eager for Martin’s impending release and the Taylors are eager to return to living their lives together. However, Emily’s depression begins to spiral out of control until an incident brings her to the attention of Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law). Banks is a successful psychiatrist working long hours, taking patients and doing work whenever he can to maintain his family’s lifestyle. Banks’ initial treatments for Emily fail due to the side effects of traditionally prescribed anti-depressants, and her former psychiatrist Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) indicates that Emily has had adjustment issues in the past. Fortunately, a representative for a new anti-depressant has made Banks a generous offer to participate in its clinical trials. Banks puts Emily on the drug, assuming that it will finally work for her…until it doesn’t. Discussion below; here be spoilers and a bit of personal exorcism: Full disclosure: the first 30-40 minutes of this movie were pretty drat uncomfortable for me because I’ve personally suffered through acute panic disorder and depression. I’ve dealt with suicidal ideation as recently as a few months ago (I sought treatment and I’m fine now, mostly). This definitely colored my perception of the overall experience, and I’m willing to bet I’ve missed stuff that the movie was conveying or that I might be missing the mark on some of the overall themes. My heart rate was up and I was breathing a little heavily in the first part of the movie, especially because Emily’s suicide attempts hit a little close to home, particularly the one via car crash; there was no subtlety in slamming into a wall marked “EXIT” and crashing my car into an inanimate object was one of my strongest ideations, possibly the closest thing to an actual plan that I had for ending my life. The transition into Emily’s path through psychiatric care is reasonably familiar for those who’ve dealt with it before, and the critical eye on the mental health care field is no different here than we’ve seen in other works of media. We sympathize with the patient and we see the hand of Big Pharma in the pockets of doctors. Despite this, some of the doctors are presented in a positive light. Banks is a sympathetic figure that cares about his patients but also wants to provide the best life at home he possibly can. Siebert is obviously interested in her former patient’s welfare and wants to help Banks however she can. The movie lacks any doctors that possess the insidiousness or brutal retribution of, say, a Nurse Ratched…at first. My biggest issue with Side Effects is its decision to change horses midstream, and as I indicated above, the flipping around applies to characterization as well as overall theme. If there’s one thing I couldn’t say about Soderbergh’s films, it’s that they’re glacially-paced. I could have gone along with the entire movie even if it focused on the consequences of Emily’s actions and how they rippled outward: her accidental murder of Martin while sleepwalking on Ablixa and the public criticism of the well-meaning yet somewhat oblivious Banks are great jumping-off points for an overall critique of the mental health care field at large. However, we aren’t given that. Instead, Jude Law channels another doctor he’s played and starts going detective on Emily. Banks, once an apparent victim of an honest mistake, becomes less and less sympathetic as he resorts to increasingly unethical methods of getting Emily to be truthful about Martin’s death. Siebert is no longer the concerned psychiatrist advising from afar, but she’s become someone that stands to gain from keeping the names of Banks and Ablixa solidly in the mud. The character we should feel the most sympathy for, Emily, could well be pulling strings that we’d never even considered as the audience. The condemnation of the mental health field and its practitioners has been done before. It’s not unusual to watch the doctors in the movie slide down the slippery slope. Side Effects, whether intentionally or not, seems to drat mental health patients to a degree as well. Ending spoilers from this point and beyond: Mara Rooney was able to convincingly portray Emily’s afflictions to the point that I could relate and it made me uncomfortable; discovering that it was all an act to murder her husband doesn’t particularly legitimize those that suffer from mental illness much at all. I get that this is a HUGE blanket statement and my own experiences are polluting my view of the movie. Still, when we throw in the details of her plot – she taught Martin’s insider trading schemes to Siebert, who in turn taught Emily to act out the side effects of medication, and they could both profit from the stock changes of Ablixa’s competitor – it goes from an engrossing drama about mental health care to a plot that could’ve come from a Lifetime movie. We even get seduction, courtesy of Emily drawing Siebert into her plan. I suppose I’m most disappointed that this movie just felt inconsistent from a thematic standpoint, and the characters follow suit. The only character that maintains consistency is Martin, and that’s probably because Emily stabs the poo poo out of him in the first act. The worst of it, though, goes to Banks – his quest for vengeance leads to a fairly despicable action, which is something we’re supposed to cheer as an audience because Emily is the obvious antagonist. Forging a personality test to help put Emily back into a mental hospital and turn her into a Thorazine zombie isn’t exactly an action befitting the character we thought Banks to be – hence my earlier reference to Nurse Ratched. Does lobotomizing a much more sympathetic (yet scummy) character such as Randle McMurphy carry the same weight as chemically doping a scheming murderer like Emily Taylor to the gills? That’s up to you to decide, I suppose. I went into this movie completely ignorant of what it was, what it was about, or anything that teaser trailers or previews could've given away for me. I suppose if I'd seen this teaser poster, I would've anticipated the movie's outcome (timg'd for huge):  Lookit dat fucken poster. I happen to like it much better than what we were given, but I suppose that the tagline would have given away too much. TL;DR: Well-paced, I liked the first half, great acting (I even liked Channing Tatum!), but the second half's inconsistencies in characterization and theme are rather jarring. As an afterthought - mods, can I get a thread tag change to "Off Meds"? ElectricSheep fucked around with this message at Feb 10, 2013 around 20:35 |
| # ? Feb 10, 2013 19:19 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 02:20 |
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I'm trying not to read too much of your post because I want to go in as cold as possible - I tend to really like Soderbergh's stuff, so this is high on my list. But I DO have a question; in that Vulture interview with Soderbergh that's making the rounds, they revealed that Mara and Zeta-Jones have a lesbian sex scene together. How big of a spoiler is that? They tagged it as one, but I saw it anyways - just wondering if that's like a final scene reveal or just a surprise. Also: I promise, I will be reading your post after; it seems like a thoughtful, interesting read. I just want to go in relatively clean.
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 20:01 |
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That's not quite so much of a final scene reveal, but you're definitely going in dirty. Try not to speculate about its context too much. It also just occurred to me to read Vargo's review (thematically spoilerly, you've been warned). Looking over it after writing the OP, I agree with the subtle telegraphing of those abrupt tonal shifts and the fact that you don't actually think about it until after the fact; it all just came off as a little TOO drastic of a shift for me, even if I put aside my personal feelings about mental health. On that note, I really want to get around to seeing Silver Linings Playbook.
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 20:25 |
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This movie should be seen with as little expectations as possible so while I'll spoil some things, I'd suggest not reading about its plot or even it's themes before you see it. Just go watch it, it's Soderbergh. That tonal shift was definitely jarring for me. The movie that I thought I was going in to see was something in the ballpark of Contagion and this is not at all the case here. In fact, I was struggling to accept the direction the movie was heading way past the point where it was reasonable to assume that Jude Laws character is just spiraling out into paranoid delusions as a result of his life falling apart. I wanted to believe Rooney Mara's character because the first part of the movie creates so much sympathy for her. I eventually bought into the plot contrivance it for the most part, even as a substantially loud voice from the back of my head was telling me not to. The biggest problem with this gear change, aside from not feeling organic (whatever that means) was that it, as mentioned in the OP, makes the first part's rather realistic portrayal of depression and suicidal ideation seem exploitative and cheap. Whether that's intentional or not is pretty irrelevant as it doesn't change how I feel about it. That said, I still enjoyed it for what it was. On a side note, it was pretty funny that the most sympathetic and least despicable character in the movie is a piece of poo poo bankster rear end in a top hat who also happens to get stabbed in cold blood, a nice example of the writer having his cake and eating it too. Finally, I couldn't help but notice how much of sliding things into focus was going on and in general how much "Peter Andrews" cinematography made me think of Jeff Cronenweth's work on Finchers movies. Bolek fucked around with this message at Feb 11, 2013 around 07:04 |
| # ? Feb 11, 2013 06:57 |
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Saw this last night and I enjoyed it! I loved Contagion, but thought Haywire was just ok. This was sort of in between but I actually did like the tonal shift halfway through the movie. I don't know I guess I just either didn't see it coming but I was rooting for Jude Law's character the whole time. I don't know I need to sleep on it but it was pretty good.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 12:31 |
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I really wish the whole Mara/Zeta-Jones kiss/sex scene hadn't been so openly spoiled. As Banks began to look closer, I already knew where things were heading. Overall, I thought it was decent. The first half was really engrossing, and the second half didn't really follow up on that well. As someone else said, I couldn't help but feel things had shifted to the point of being a Lifetime movie.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 13:10 |
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ElectricSheep posted:That's not quite so much of a final scene reveal, but you're definitely going in dirty. Try not to speculate about its context too much. Yay, people read me. I posted this in Gen Chat, but I'm going to re-post it here now that I know this thread exists. I thought it was pretty clever in the "Oh, goddammit" sort of way. (Minor spoilers) As I pointed out, Catherine Zeta-Jones' character is named Dr. Victoria Siebert, and that name is EVERYWHERE. Close-up of signs with her name, articles with her name on the byline, a key moment where Jude Law sees that name on a sign-in sheet. There's also a minor plot point involving a lingerie purchase. And they go out of their way to make sure you know that the purchase isn't just lingerie. It's very specifically Victoria's Secret. On at least a subconscious level, it was another point where they yell "PAY ATTENTION TO VICTORIA SIEBERT." Because hey guess what, Victoria has a secret, and it involves the scene where we see that famous pink bag.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 14:52 |
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Just got out of this, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Some stray thoughts: --The movie seemed pre-occupied with gender, but I'm not quite sure what it was trying to say. The line about girls learning to fake while boys learn to lie stuck with me. The structure feeds into that as well; the first half, focusing on Mara, gives us what seems to be a sensitive character portrait. The second half, focusing on Law, is driven, ugly and vindictive. --Given how manipulative and calculating Mara's character ends up being, I wouldn't be surprised if she was consciously written as a textbook case of some other mental disorder. Sociopathy? I didn't pay enough attention in Psych 1000. It does raise some interesting questions, though: where do you draw the line between sympathetic behavior and actions you should be judged for? If Emily's actions were a result of psychopathy or sociopathy, doesn't she deserve treatment as much as someone suffering from depression? At the same time, it's impossible to condone what she did. Still thinking it through a bit. I'd like to watch it again.
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| # ? Feb 13, 2013 05:47 |
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I don't know how to feel about everything after the penultimate scene when Jude Law explains the terms of Rooney Mara's probation, prior to her arrest, I'd have preferred an ending that didn't tie things up so neatly, but the way the sliminess of relationships between Pharma Reps and M.D.s are portrayed was totally on point, as were the descriptions of the purpose and side effects of SSRIs. I also appreciated that they managed to at least name drop everything from beta blockers to ECT, and primarily cover some of their more hardcore side effects, it made the writing feel surprisingly earnest and timely. It was the details that made me really appreciate anything about this movie, especially, that quick shot of Jude Law staring at an "Ablixis" labeled pen after sitting down for a moment of reflection, him being forced into reckless decision making about a suicidal patient and excessive workload by his past, and his desire to provide for his new American family. The way he desperately asks his partner for Adderall to fuel his conspiracy theorizing, knowing full well how unethical that would be, all the while anticipating how routine such a breach of ethics would be as opposed to deciding not to commit a suicidal patient was great. Rooney Mara's character motivation made sense as well, as the poster above suggested, she's a textbook sociopath, and was given a taste of old money and connected family, while knowing nothing but abandonment, before having it all stripped away by her husband's failures.
cargo cult fucked around with this message at Feb 13, 2013 around 08:04 |
| # ? Feb 13, 2013 07:47 |
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ElectricSheep posted:On that note, I really want to get around to seeing Silver Linings Playbook. Just as your personal experience coloured your watch of Side Effects, if you have experienced bipolar disorder within your friends or family, you'll probably have a hard time getting past the fact that Bradley Cooper's character doesn't act like a person with BPD much at all. I actually felt that the film did a real disservice to BPD and people's perception of it.
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| # ? Feb 13, 2013 17:38 |
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Just saw this movie today and I was deeply disappointed by the "shift" that has been described in this thread. In the first half of the movie, we get what seems to be an excellent critique of big pharma, some prevalent conflicts of interest in psychiatry, and the medicalization of psychological problems. Many characters in the film have a cavalier attitude toward psychiatric drugs. Yet, the first half of the film accurately suggests that these drugs can be potentially dangerous, recommended based on biased research, deceptively marketed, and grossly overprescribed. What's the problem then? Sadly, the second half of the film undermines the messages communicated by the first. I'll have to spoiler the specifics [Major plot/ending spoilers follow]. Though we are initially led to believe that Emily is a victim of a very broken mental health system, we soon learn otherwise. Emily doesn't kill her husband due to side effects from a dangerous medication. Rather, she does it intentionally, out of greed. She is involved in a money-making scheme with Victoria--using legitimate public concerns about psychiatric medication as a cover to get away with murder and manipulate pharma stocks in the process. As a result, what should be powerful statements about problems with American mental health care become muddled. Emily's shining example of what's wrong with the system is revealed merely to be a criminal's farce. Missing an opportunity to depict how a corrupt system can prey upon the vulnerable, the film instead hints that the system isn't at fault, evil doers and "fakers" of mental illness are. 
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 07:48 |
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The disappointment seems to stem from a misreading of what the movie was about, which makes sense given it spends the entire first act painting Rooney Mara as a vulnerable depression sufferer. I feel there are enough hints at what the actual aim/genre of the movie is psychological thriller, not sadbrain drama to be able to see the forest through the Big Pharm trees. Those bits were well done and topical, though, which is probably why they threw a lot of us off. Once you have context for the opening scene being the aftermath of a murder instead of a suicide, and the lingering shots of Catherine Zeta-Jones being not quite all she appears to be, the movie's tone shift clicks into place. They foreshadow the turn from the very first couple of scenes; there's a very nice image of Mara at the bar party in soft focus, her reflection is warped and dark. At that point in the movie, it's a reflection of her depression. In retrospect, it's a reflection of her duplicity (and gets mirrored in that shot where she leaves the cab and is shot out of focus while the background is clear). I didn't mind the ending being so neat, but there was a weird undercurrent of "women are conniving, shrill and unreliable" throughout the movie. Jude Law's wife, the female Big Pharm rep, Mara's boss, et. al.
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| # ? Feb 19, 2013 19:39 |
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Channing Tatum is like a Greek myth. He's a really good actor, and works very hard, but no one will take him seriously. His beauty is his curse.
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 18:43 |
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I did not enjoy this movie. By the last third of the movie I was ready for it to be over, I didn't care what happened, pretty much because of what Jitzu_the_Monk already said.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 05:49 |
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See I disagree, I see the second half of the film as nothing more then as reinforcing the themes presented in the first half. Emily's statement that she chose Jude Law's character randomly after 'just looking at the world around us now' and how easily Jude Law abuses the system to prove his innocence. Emily just embodies why the mental health industry has become what it is. Greed.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 06:23 |
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bromplicated posted:I did not enjoy this movie. By the last third of the movie I was ready for it to be over, I didn't care what happened, pretty much because of what Jitzu_the_Monk already said. I agree. They just had to beat the plot over your head.
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| # ? Mar 12, 2013 02:52 |
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I just saw this, really went in with zero info from trailers, interviews, etc. Pretty much agree with most of the thoughts in this thread regarding the midway shift, though I have to say the opening scene was a fantastic misdirect and I did not expect that at all (cringed pretty far into my seat). I much would have preferred a movie that explored the consequences of psychiatry's reliance on mood-altering drugs than the somewhat generic whodunit that resulted in the tonal shift.
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| # ? Mar 19, 2013 20:07 |
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Howcome no-one's mentioned how completely loving hilarious this movie is? After the twist and the genre shifts to everyone-loving-everyone-else-over farce, which by the way made the movie, I was laughing out loud all the way to the credits. So many great lines! Jude Law clutching with glee the incriminating photographs, oblivious to how life-wrecking they are: "These prove everything!" Or when he's desperately pleading with the other doctor: "I solved it! I solved it by myself!!" like he's found himself in a mystery thriller. Or when he's threatening Mara with electroshock therapy. And when he's exacting his revenge on Mara at the end and she just has to play along. It basically turns into a Coen brothers film or something. It's hysterical. Popcorn fucked around with this message at Mar 31, 2013 around 11:10 |
| # ? Mar 30, 2013 02:04 |
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Is anyone else aside from me and the OP super creeped out by how regressive this movie is with its treatment of mental illness? Basing a movie around the idea that someone is just faking their mental illness as an excuse to murder people is loving reptilian and sounds like something you'd expect from some teabagger shithead, not Soderbergh. Then again, I don't have the highest opinion of Soderbergh because I've been burned thrice by him in the past year or so: hated Haywire, was pretty meh on Magic Mike and while I thought this was well-done I have serious problems with its message.
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| # ? Mar 31, 2013 02:04 |
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I didn't really see it so much as a movie that's an indictment of the mentally ill as much as it is an indictment of a system that is so used to prescribing away problems with what ever has the least offensive side effects to the point that a murder could be planned around it. It's not so much saying that mentally ill people are faking it as much as it's saying that it's odd and a little disturbing how normal it's become to gently caress up your body with chemicals to deal with your problems to the point where it creates other problems. It's not totally dismissive of medicating or anything and really the whole first part of the movie serves as an extremely fair contemplation of the whole drug culture, it's just a movie that takes a concept and pushes it to extreme and odd places.
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| # ? Mar 31, 2013 04:29 |
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WickedIcon posted:Is anyone else aside from me and the OP super creeped out by how regressive this movie is with its treatment of mental illness? Basing a movie around the idea that someone is just faking their mental illness as an excuse to murder people is loving reptilian and sounds like something you'd expect from some teabagger shithead, not Soderbergh. Yes, this was the foundation of my post above. The movie is awkward in how regressive it is.
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| # ? Apr 2, 2013 00:42 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 02:20 |
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I gotta go with axleblaze. As someone who takes OTC anxiety meds, which yeah aren't as big a deal as the stuff in the movie but, I appreciated the message of the film. I also happened to see it right before Silver Linings Playbook which touches upon some similar themes and makes for an interesting companion piece to Side Effects.
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| # ? Apr 2, 2013 16:05 |
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