Side Effects - 2 smiles

For the first hour, “Side Effects” is a gripping thriller, providing a chilling indictment of the nation’s pharmaceutical industry. Then it changes directions and becomes more of a standard crime procedural. The result is disappointing, especially since the double and triple crosses work better on paper and strain credibility. The movie begins as a damning critique of a society hooked on pills and fast fixes. Rooney Mara plays Emily Taylor, a beautiful woman whose life in New York City is turned upside down when her handsome young husband, Martin (Channing Tatum), is imprisoned for four years for insider trading. When we meet Emily, she is having trouble coping with having her husband home again and she attempts suicide. As she recovers in the hospital, she meets sympathetic psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who prescribes Abilixa, a hot new anti-depressant that promises in its ads that users can ‘take back tomorrow.’  However, for Emily, things just get darker and darker as she begins sleepwalking. We also see how quickly a good doctor is willing to add prescription after prescription to get Emily feeling better. More over, he’s happy to take cash from a pharmaceutical firm that offers him as much as $50,000 to prescribe experimental drugs for patients who are willing to sign on as guinea pigs. This issue is real and the film’s pivotal scene has Emily involved in a disturbingly violent episode. Soon, though, we learn more about Emily’s beautiful former psychiatrist Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and we discover that lust and greed, not prescription drugs, maybe at the heart of the nightmare.

The performances are strong. Mara, in particular, stands out as a woman whose perfect life becomes a sudden hell. She oozes vulnerability, especially when seeking help from a medical industry that long ago decided that pill popping is the quickest (and easiest) way to patient improvement. Law, too, is terrific as a doctor caught between making a living and helping his patients. But  the last half of the movie becomes more of a whodunit with a plot so convoluted that it’s hard to follow. Some might see the twists in “Side Effects” as clever. For me, director Stephen Soderbergh didn’t play fair. I felt cheated. 2/13/13