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Created Feb 17, 2013 01:50PM PST • Edited Jul 03, 2015 12:01PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Tangled murder mystery, 2013 psychiatric variety, thy name is Side Effects. Shrink meds have become a defining phenomena of our therapeutic age, yet brain doctors lack diagnostics beyond human observation. Still. No imaging, no blood tests but for some side-effects. Side-effects plus murder comprise Side Effects.

   Steven Soderbergh’s movie mines today’s cutting-edge disturbia effectively if disturbingly. Tangled plot notwithstanding, it keeps its shit together in less bizarre fashion than many thrillers. But not before subjecting us to a dragging first reel and then doing some flips thereafter. Hail to the Maestro of Modern Angst for landing those plot gymnastics, even if the convoluted result is more wearying than thrilling.

   While convoluted, this murder mystery can be solved by employing the Law & Order Rule.

   The big stars are always central to the case.

   Thus a poster that’s poor for marketing purposes displays a clue nearly as obvious as Col. Mustard in the Conservatory. Say no more, say no more.

   Steel yourself for a trenchant topic well exploited in the form of tragic drama and be satisfied by viewing a Soderbergh classic in Side Effects. He may be overly manipulative, but he’s still bracingly cutting-edge.

   Want a less disturbing yet more insightful current movie about mental illness? Silver Linings Playbook.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Rooney Mara & Jude Law, Channing Tatum & Catherine Zeta-Jones: Imagine the combinatorial possibilities, sexually speaking. Vinessa Shaw is the odd one out, or so she suspects. The first four are bona fide moviestars, though Mara is fairly new on the scene. Shaw comes from TV Land.

   Tatum plays smarter than usual as a High Finance Cowboy and devoted husband. Mara delivers a minor-key masterpiece as his unstable wife. It’s not a newsflash that she can act, yet by nailing another major role she proves herself more than a flash in the pan.

   Law isn’t annoying, an improvement from his usual roles, while Shaw is plenty plausible as his wife.

   Zeta-Jones delivers her second gorgeously assured performance of this young year, not even a month since Broken City left theaters. Mama!

   Two notables from the supporting cast:

   • Polly Draper plays an ad agency boss who knows from psych meds, an ideal role for the former thirtysomething star.
   • Mamie Gummer plays a rich banker’s wife, though doesn’t make it distinctive the way her Mother might. Mamie Gummer Streep, that is.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    The film effectively plays off the increasing angst about meds in general and psychiatric meds in particular – their ubiquity, their marketing, their role in free choice. Steven Soderbergh and his frequent screenwriter Scott Z. Burns have now used a medical scare for two films in a row, the previous one being Contagion.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Twenty years after Sex, Lies and Videotape Soderbergh’s still rocking the post-modern boat.

12. Play Good 3.0

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    Psychiatric violence isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially if they’ve been near it in real life.

    A sexual surprise provides a tasty twist however.

17. Sex Erotic 3.0

18. Violence Brutal 2.7

19. Rudeness Profane 3.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    Thrillers are circumstantially glib as a rule. Side Effects is no exception.

    As to its underlying reality, it name-drops a bunch of real psychiatric meds – Zoloft, Lexapro and others – before fixating on an imaginary one undergoing clinical trials. It then implicitly condemns the system by which drug manufacturers pay doctors to enroll patients in clinical trials. I’m no expert in this, but it seems like too easy a target. After all, what’s the alternative to such late stage testing? More deeply, what’s the alternative to pharmaceutical treatment? Seems that would be a return to the pre-pharma age when people suffered more broadly than today. Ouch, that would entail enduring much more than side-effects.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.9

23. Biological Glib 1.5

24. Physical Natural 1.0