Side Effects (2013)

Young woman takes antidepressants, all hell breaks loose

You’ve probably heard of Side Effects, but have you heard that Side Effects is actually good? Largely overlooked on its release, Steven Soderbergh’s tremendous, engrossing thriller takes pleasure in throwing us curveball after curveball. Just when it seems like none of the characters are who we thought they were, we realize all of them are – the young woman is hiding a terrible, dark secret; her psychologist is as unscrupulous as we fear him to be; her former therapist is manipulative and calculating.

The same can be said for the film: at first I was disappointed when I realized that instead of a grand statement on the damaging union of big business and pharmacology, it was a very specific and smaller-scale mystery thriller. But, impressively, it retains the excitement and unpredictability of those B-movie genres while still making some astute observations on modern medicine – namely, that when capitalism and prescription drugs hit the sack (as they do quite literally here, in one of many unexpected twists), things get crazier than a suburban mom armed with a Xanax and a bottle of wine.

Side Effects exists in a frighteningly familiar post-ethics nightmare in which shady corporations play a shell game where the health of the consumer is nothing more than a variable to be managed. The film may make absolutely no sense from a realistic, plot-hole perspective, but it’s wildly enjoyable, an ode to those great Brian De Palma trash classics. With terrific performances, especially from Jude Law and Rooney Mara, and a great score.