Mixing the artful complexities of “Traffic,” the occasional wit of “Ocean’s Eleven,” and the medically thrilling tones of “Contagion,” “Side Effects” seems like an appropriate send-off of specialty techniques and styles for director Steven Soderbergh before going on his publicized, indefinite hiatus. It even includes the intelligent plotline and Channing Tatum of “Magic Mike,” though unfortunately without the flair of male stripping.
Rooney Mara plays the role of distraught wife Emily Taylor who awaits her husband Martin Taylor (Channing Tatum) as he is released from a four-year prison sentence. After a troubling psychological attack on her own well-being, she is made to see psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), a successful medical practitioner who sees her on a regular basis to treat her developing condition. Though after a disturbing series of eerie events involving the prescription he has given her, Jonathan becomes the focus of a story centered on powerful ethical and psychosomatic questions about both party’s actions.
Mara and Law give mysteriously engrossing but very different portrayals of people mixed into a conspiracy of trouble and loss. The remaining cast, including a mentally strong fellow psychiatrist with curious intentions (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and an emotionally distraught but earnest mother-in-law (Ann Dowd), help fuel the character study each actor strongly presents. From Law’s obsessive dependence on the truth to Tatum’s desperate management of his return to society and his marriage, the ensemble appropriately counteracts one another to present one of the film’s strongest features.
Yet even the all-star acting assembly can only watch as the direction takes the reins, for better or worse. “Side Effects” is healthily advanced by a clutter of genres and styles that Soderbergh plays with in a serious manner, but with the ease of transition of a master filmmaker. In a form harkening Hitchcock in his prime, even going so far as to directly reflect on “Psycho” in numerous forms, Soderbergh intertwines a dramatic review of the law and its practices into a thrilling mental game without much trouble.
Soderbergh introduces a flurry of developments whose meanings have more purpose than the common attention-grabber, but at the sacrifice of some of their intended interest to viewers. Once the main driving plotline of “Side Effects” is set up, and Law’s charisma leads him into unfortunate circumstances, the film places each character in situations against one another that show their traits of dominance and weakness.
The dire events experienced by these appealing protagonists add a depressing, if not ironically predictable, feel to the grand scheme. Once the conspiracies and distressing plot twists set in comfortably, an increasing lack of surprise couples each successive conquest of good or evil. Still, this is to be expected in a film that, at heart, remains devoted to its thrilling Hitchcockian format.
This is the largest and singularly notable flaw in Soderbergh’s scrutinization of the human mind and spirit. The main purpose that “Side Effects” drives toward is matching the common moviegoer’s ideal interest of a satisfying conclusion. The film is filled with entertaining idiosyncrasies, from dimly portrayed modern city settings backed by a pulsing score to the trademark quietly controlling elusiveness of Mara’s character. Throw them all together, and “Side Effects” appears at initial glance to be a loyal but repetitive recreation of the suspense and noir it ponders over.
“Side Effects” impressively tries to catch the audience off guard on numerous occasions with dramatic attacks on the physical and mental state of each actor’s devoted role, sometimes playing the game too simply. Nevertheless, what it may eventually lose in surprise, it consistently makes up for in its bleakly intriguing premise. It will not gain the awards or recognition it overtly aims to, but Soderbergh’s final effort, for now, leaves a level of fascination only a few of his pictures have achieved. If and when he does return, he’ll have left himself a strong ending marker on which to resume.
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