Director Steven Soderbergh keeps saying that he is going to retire. As long as he keeps turning out smart, fun thrillers like SIDE EFFECTS, let's hope it's an idle threat.
Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) stars as Emily Taylor, a beautiful young woman who has the perfect life until her stock trader husband Martin (Channing Tatum) is sent to prison for insider training. The film opens as Martin is released from prison and comes back into Emily's life.
Fine on the surface but battling with depression, Emily has a mysterious car accident that appears intentional and she wakes up in the hospital and meets Psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law).
Banks puts her on depression medication.
From that point forward, maybe twenty minutes into the film, SIDE EFFECTS barrels forward into a deeper and deeper mystery.
Like a classic Hitchcock film, one of our male leads finds himself in a very bad position in which everyone assumes he is guilty and he must battle to regain his reputation and his life.
Law, Mara and Tatum are all good here, only Catherine Zeta-Jones channeling every bad doctor stereotype in the movies seems in over her head.
Side Effects is a fast, intelligent thriller that kept me guessing all the way to the end.
Good stuff Soderbergh, don't retire yet, we give you a solid B.
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