Side Effects (2013)
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 178
Fresh: 152 | Rotten: 26
A smart, clever thriller with plenty of disquieting twists, Side Effects is yet another assured effort from director Steven Soderbergh.
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Critic Reviews: 47
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 8
A smart, clever thriller with plenty of disquieting twists, Side Effects is yet another assured effort from director Steven Soderbergh.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 37,367
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Movie Info
SIDE EFFECTS is a provocative thriller about Emily and Martin (Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum), a successful New York couple whose world unravels when a new drug prescribed by Emily's psychiatrist (Jude Law) - intended to treat anxiety - has unexpected side effects. (c) Official FB
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Cast
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Rooney Mara
Emily Hawkins, Emily Ta... -
Channing Tatum
Martin Taylor -
Jude Law
Dr. Jonathan Banks -
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Dr. Victoria Siebert -
Vinessa Shaw
Dierdre Banks -
Ann Dowd
Martin's Mother -
Carmen Pelaez
Prison Desk Guard -
Martin Ireland
Upset Visitor -
Polly Draper
Emily's Boss -
Haraldo Alvarez
Garage Attendant -
Jimmy Martinez
Police Officer at Hospi... -
Vladimir Versailles
Augustin -
Jacqueline Antaramian
Desk Nurse -
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Katie Lowes
Conference Organizer -
David Costabile
Carl -
Mamie Gummer
Kayla -
Steven Platt
Bartender -
Víctor Cruz
NYPD Officer Beahan -
Elizabeth Rodriguez
Pharmacist -
Peter Friedman
Banks Partner #1 -
Andrea Bogart
Drug Rep -
Laila Robins
Banks Partner #2 -
Mitchell Michaliszyn
Ezra Banks -
Elizabeth Rich
Banks Patient #1 -
Roderick Rodriguez
Paramedic #1 -
Mark Weekes
Paramedic #2 -
John Scott Shepherd
NYPD Detective -
Michael Nathanson
Assistant District Atto... -
Timothy Klein
Transporting Officer Kl... -
Sheila Tapia
Emily's Attorney -
Josh Elliott
GMA Anchor -
Sasha Bardey
Dr. Peter Joubert -
Ashley A. Morrison
Reporter #1 -
Steve Lacy
Reporter #2 -
Ken Marks
Banks Patient #2 -
Devin Ratray
Banks Patient #3 -
Russell G. Jones
Jeffery Childs -
Munro M. Bonnell
Judge #1 -
Susan Gross
Susan -
Debbie Friedlander
Wards Island Administra... -
Ilyana Kadushin
ECT Patient -
Johnny Sanchez
ECT Nurse -
Nicole Ansari
Disturbed Patient on Ph... -
La Chanze
Wards Island Desk Nurse -
Alice Niedermair-Ludwig
Wards Island Nurse -
Craig muMs Grant
Wards Island Orderly -
Davenia McFadden
Judge #2 -
Raymond DeBendictis
Arresting Officer -
J. Claude Deering
Zach -
Blake Lively
Emily Hawkins
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Side Effects Trailer & Photos
All Critics (178) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (153) | Rotten (26) | DVD (1)
As a thriller in the Hitchcock mould, 'Side Effects' is great fun: its characters are well acted without being entirely likeable, which makes their jeopardy all the more enjoyable while putting us at a clinical remove.
Soderbergh is less interested in making statements than he is in skillfully fulfilling genre expectations.
A crafty teaser that presents itself as one kind of film before gradually evolving into another kind altogether. I, for one, enjoyed both enormously.
Steven Soderbergh is one of our best and most versatile directors.
Side Effects is a cracking thriller that ranks amongst Soderbergh's best, featuring electric performances by Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum.
Side Effects virtually demands a three-word review: Just see it.
A crafty screenplay and devilishly sexy turns from Mara and Catherine Zeta-Jones keep the movie mesmerizing, and one of my favorite movies released in 2013 so far.
Even when it twists back to Hitchcockland, there's more than enough lingering spookiness about a culture's dependence on prescription drugs and psychiatry to wrench Side Effects away from being a mere trickster-tale.
Soderbergh is that rare director who can turn a clunky screenplay into something almost entirely delicious, and with SIDE EFFECTS he does exactly that.
Soderbergh, with the help of some excellent writing by Scott Z. Burns and an outstanding cast, take you to Hitchcock territory.
A masterful double-bluff. What starts as a taut, topical drama about medicated America becomes a classic, twisted neo-noir that sees Soderbergh pushing aside on-the-nose themes in favour of sheer entertainment.
One moment, we're watching an enthralling exposé of the modern pharmaceutical industry; the next we're reeling from some well-timed mystery-thriller shocks. And Soderbergh, aided by a sharp script and superb cast, wrong-foots us all the way.
Ripper psychological mystery-thriller...prime, sharply directed guessing game stuff full of plot surprises and great left turns.
Courtroom drama, forensic thriller, romantic murder mystery...It's as if, the prescription for genre side effects, is more genres.
At its best, it's chilling, creepy, strange and intriguing; at its worst, it's gorgeous to look at.
A real pill of a movie that packs a serious one-two punch as a detective drama coupled with a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to pharma-cate our troubles away.
The feature evolves from an icy, haunting tale of depression and abandonment into a squalid, sordid, serpentine Alfred Hitchcock pastiche. That it can glide from these two poles with us barely realising is a testament to Soderbergh's talent.
A story that plays subtle tricks with our moral allegiances.
An effortlessly slick medical thriller that makes no grand statements or summations beyond being effortlessly artful and entertaining.
If this puzzling, often very enjoyable medical thriller were directed by almost any film-maker other than Steven Soderbergh, you would be tempted to diagnose it with genre identity disorder.
It's certainly entertaining if you are willing to suspend your disbelief a little.
Another genre exercise for Soderbergh that he has managed to pull off with the help of his Hollywood friends to entertaining, if ultimately rather underwhelming, effect.
An intelligently crafted story, which is briskly paced and highly suspenseful - until a crude and puerile payoff in the third act.
This movie is pure hokum, just as Hitchcock's great originals are, but you only realise this after - just like all the people in the film - you have been thoroughly hooked and duped yourself.
Thrillers don't get much more enjoyable than this one, which shifts cleverly from an issue-based drama to an intriguing mystery and finally into riotously camp mayhem.
As Burns' screenplay takes yet another dark alternate route, our heavily-medicated contemporary society is fearlessly placed under the microscope.
Audience Reviews for Side Effects
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Dierdre Banks: Did the person do it? Are they guilty?
- Dr. Jonathan Banks: In this case, those are two very different things.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Is Rex Reed the worst film critic that has ever lived? | 34 days ago | 42 |
| Is this movie anti-psychology? | 45 days ago | 3 |
| If you want to know what Thorazine feels like, see this film. It's an absolute disaster. | 46 days ago | 2 |
| Contagion 2? | 2 months ago | 6 |
| Does this have multiplayer? | 2 months ago | 6 |
Latest News on Side Effects
February 8, 2013:
Video Interviews with the Cast of Side Effects: Jude Law, Channing Tatum, Rooney Mara, and moreLuke Goodsell is committed to not revealing too much about Steven Soderbergh's new movie Side...
February 7, 2013:
Critics Consensus: Side Effects is Certified FreshThis week at the movies, we've got a woman on the edge (Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara and...
February 7, 2013:
Total Recall: Jude Law's Best MoviesOver the course of a career spanning two decades and dozens of movies, Jude Law has become one of...
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Foreign Titles
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Top Critic
The same is true of Side Effects. When it begins, with our lead character going through an endless transition from anxiety pill to anxiety pill in an attempt to feel better, or at least something, it seems that Soderbergh's last film is going to be an open fire on the pill industry. But as it progresses through a murder and some beautifully strung paranoia, we realise it's done a somersault in a different direction and becomes a mystery to rival Agatha Christie's most gleefully loopy narratives for twists, turns and all-exposing final reveals.
And you can't help but feel Soderbergh's steady influence throughout these proceedings. His signature look and feel aside, it's the calm ease with which he ushers us through this transition; the seamless joins where one genre ends and the other begins. And despite the fact that mystery movies by now have the been-there-done-that feel to them, through key sequences and cleverly framed moments, Soderbergh never loses our attention for a second. When Emily drives her car into a wall, for instance, it's clearly stated to be a suicidal attempt, a cry for help in her time of mental anguish. But when this is shown to be something else entirely, all but the most suspicious of viewers will be taken by surprise by a trick which has been seen many times before. Or when Emily breaks down at a party, we see it as an understandable display of a complex emotion which Emily must be going through. Yet when it, too, is shown in its true light, it once again takes us by surprise. This rejuvenation of an often clichéd genre is what sets Stephen Soderbergh apart from a director who may have taken the work at face value. It's his understanding of the genre and its tropes which makes it possible for him to pull off such a blindside on an audience who are used to being blindsided.
Audiences aren't surprised by things anymore. Twist endings have less and less effect the more they are used. And they are used often. Time and time again, audience members, myself included, walk out of a cinema saying, "I saw that coming." We've been conditioned not to trust anyone on the screen. The Usual Suspects taught us that the most convincing of narrators can be false. Citizen Kane taught us to look for the tiniest detail. Planet of the Apes taught us to think on a wider scale. We know this twist-ending stuff back to front. In light of this, Stephen Soderbergh has pulled off something of a coup d'etat on our understandings. This is a director pulling a switch on a genre, not just a plot; something which is entirely more difficult to do and much more difficult to predict. If this is confirmed to be the film he's going out on, he's going out with a bang.
But it would be more of a whimper if the cast didn't bring their A-game, and they definitely do. Rooney Mara, already having garnered critical acclaim for her tough, raw performance in David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is fantastic as Emily; the depressed wife of a con-man newly released from prison. In keeping with Soderbergh's sleight of hand, Mara is 100% believable as both the housewife in the throes of depression, sinking in a sea of anti-anxiety pills and anti-depressants, as well as her second act counterpart as a scheming mastermind. It's a fantastic performance, not as explosive or shocking as her 2011 role, but no less demanding. She has more emotion to work with here, more sides to her character, and she plays them all with utter conviction.
But as the film does an about face, so too does its leading character, jumping from Emily to her doctor, Jonathan Banks, played by Jude Law. Law has always proven to be an impressive actor but he hasn't had many chances to show it recently. Here, finally given a chance, he brings the talent which made him such a valuable commodity in the first place, moving from professional therapist to quivering wreck as he lands under the microscope of a massive investigation, then to seemingly paranoid conspiracy theorist and finally to satisfied victor. It's a performance which demands a huge range and Law displays just that, never failing to connect with the audience whether he's harassing Emily or desperately trying to convince his wife to stand by him. Catherine Zeta-Jones is all fire and energy in her small but important role and Channing Tatum shows his ever-increasing skill as Emily's ill-fated husband, but at the centre of the film are the two performances from Jude Law and Rooney Mara, and they both do a fantastic job.
But it really is Soderbergh's film. Though he's never onscreen, his presence is always felt, through either his understated, murky style of filming which walks some unseen line between realism and fairytale so deftly that he is able to jump between one or the other at will. Or through the ease with which he's able to change so quickly from devastating drama to paranoid thriller without tipping his hand. It's impressive work from someone who has always been a generator of impressive work and the movie scene will be that much poorer in his absence.