Side Effects [DVD] (2003)

Really enjoyed this film. Was left thinking about it for days after! Big plot twist, really enjoyed it

good film

Side Effects (2013) - Directed by Steven SoderberghSoderbergh's stuff is always worth a watch, the emphasis on detail, character study, great dialogue and ultra-realism which, whilst undoubtedly laudable, sometimes means our Hollywood-primed expectations fail to be met. Contagion (2010) was a perfect example of this, a worldwide pandemic caused by a bird flu like virus is killing A list celebrities, realism trumping escapism throughout the film, which was critically acclaimed, and something - you know the running, jumping and explosions - is lost.In Side Effects Jude Law plays a conflicted English man, not an uncommon casting decision for him. He's a psychiatrist who's on duty one night when a road traffic victim comes through his A&E department. She admits to driving her car straight at a wall and he becomes her head doctor as he tries to help her through a debilitating depression. Meanwhile, the woman's husband, a former trader who's served time for insider dealing, is struggling to build his life now he's on the outside again. There are several scenes where we see him and her struggling to cope with her depressive illness. Around twenty-five minutes in when you're settling in still trying to find the narrative centre of this tale, it twists and takes a direction that's quite unexpected. Rooney Mara's character, Emily, the depressed wife, takes things to a whole new level on the tower block of mental illness by getting in a fugue state and stabbing her husband in the back with a kitchen knife.Tatum Channing, who we might have confidently expected to stay the narrative course he is such a rising star in Hollywood, collapses to the linoleum and breathes no more. This murder embroils Jude Law's character in a scandal around the medication he'd prescribed her for her mental illness as it begins to emerge that there may have been some unpleasant side effects hushed up during its trials.This psychological what-the-hell-is-really-going-on-arama is eminently watchable, Jude Law is always great to watch and a plastic lipped Catherine Zeta Jones makes a surprising intervention as the lesbian lover of Rooney Mara's character in the final two-thirds of the story. Again our expectations are surprised when what we thought might be a genuine medical drama, along the lines of Coma from the 1980s, about the dangers of untested drugs rushed to market, turns out to be something else entirely. I won't say what as it will spoil the denouement for you. Needless to say, what we originally thought was going on, Jude Law trying to help a depressed woman rebuild her life, is simply the distraction technique for the true intrigue here. I did manage to unpick most of the plot by the mid-point but my rapid guesses were only seventy percent right, which in escapologist terms would mean I'd have only wriggled out of the arms and torso of the straight jacket before the rope snapped and I was plunged head-first into the tank of starving piranha, a wonderful image but not quite good enough in my own personal race to decrypt the plots of the film's I watch.The twists and turns are well delivered, the story treats its audience with a respectful intelligence, it was just a bit slow to get going and there were no explosions at all.*** Three stars.

Side Effects hints that it might have something to say about 'big pharma' or the increasing use of anti-depressants. Bit those are really just backdrops to a well-made but somewhat predictable thriller. It's the sort of film you'll feel that you have seen before, even if you haven't. Given the director and cast it's all quality stuff, but ultimately left me feeling 'is that it?'

True crime writer Ellison Oswalt finds Super 8 film footage in the attic of his new home. It depicts the massacre of the house's previous inhabitants and from the minute he watches the film he is doomed, unleashing an ancient pagan deity whose only purpose is to corrupt the young and turn them into homicidal maniacs.Scott Derrickson's film may not break any new ground, but it is a masterful genre piece, slowly building the tension as the main protagonist comes to the realisation that he and his family are in mortal danger, but that he is powerless to stop what is coming.

Just acquired this to refresh my memory of it ready to go see Sinister 2. I could vaguely remember what it was about but thought best refresh so I don't miss out on any references to this one in the sequel. Anyway this is classed as a modern classic horror, but I don't see why. Ho it's competently made and as all the ingredient of a good (not great but good) horror movie but the director seems to sleep walk through it. Never really getting the best out of it, the actors or the camera work. It's about on par with a well made soap. Soaps have to shoot multiple episodes a week not just 90 minutes over six weeks. I found the story interesting and was intrigued enough to want to see the out come, but the images were lacklustre, lacking atmosphere or any sense of dread or the slightest threat. You knew what was going to happen the only mystery was how and by who, though for by who, we only have an option of two and the odds point to one more than the other. When he, our protagonist, is reviewing the home movies of previous victims I guess we are supposed to be horrified by them, and they are horrific, but are shown in such a matter a fact way, with no sound other than that of the projectors clatter, that they become clinically sterile. Like watching some old medical operation leaving us the viewer interested but disconnected and uninvolved. The rest is just padding to fill out the time and prolong the inevitable ending. It tries to inject some sense of maniacal presence lurking in the shadows but fails to invoke the right atmosphere to make it convincing. Would have made one of those late night spooky dramas on TV back in the sixties and seventies. No more than a modern fairy story. Good to watch just for the story line but not if you really want something to frighten you.

Leaving aside what are obvious no-no's - as a psychotherapist, the gaffes in the script are painful but leeway for artistic licence must be given since - this is a very good story. Jude Law is excellent. Pretty boy-turned mans, his acting conveys the subtly and intelligence of his part which could not have been conveyed without it being inherent to the actor. The actress Rooney Mara is chilling, Catherine Zeta-Jones is good (looks a bit like a gargoyle in what appears as an attempt to lessen her good looks for the sake of gravitas - didn't work and was a little distracting) and Channing Tatum was also very good. I have to say there was one section in the film where I had become sufficiently bored to be on the brink of turning it off, but I persevered and for the sake of the at the end - I was glad. It was a great ending, both from the plot's twists and from the sense of satisfaction. would watch it again.