#REVIEW: “SIDE EFFECTS”

One of the most thrilling rides you’ll experience at the Movies in 2013 fortunately comes early in the year for those of us who have been – pardon the pun – going crazy waiting to see it.  Auteur Director Steven Soderbergh and longtime Writing Collaborator Scott Z. Burns  (The Informant, Contagion)  by no means make Side Effects  an easy guessing game for those of us who love our Psychological- Thrillers.

With Martin‘s (Channing Tatum) release from Prison forthcoming, anxieties are high for his Wife Emily (Rooney Mara).  Struggling to transition back into her life with Martin again, Emily gets into a near fatal crash out of her own volition, then seeking the help of Psychiatrist Dr. Banks (Jude Law).  On the recommendation of her former Psychiatrist Dr. Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones),  he prescribes  new medication for Emily leading to devastating side effects, causing Emily‘s world to unravel.  With his professional reputation on-the-line with the amount of Media attention surrounding Emily, Dr. Banks is forced to dig deep to defend both his and her integrity.  Along the way though,  he uncovers a thing or two which Emily might not have wanted him to know.

Side Effects while at once manipulative, undeniably is enthralling. What makes it a fantastic Film is that its motives are complex and multi-layered, while its characters we learn, are way smarter than we think.  Soderbergh opens our eyes to the dirty world or Prescription Drugs and you just may walk away from this with changed perspectives.

Rooney Mara solidifies her standing as perhaps the most exciting Actress of her Generation, channeling an understated elegance and a bottomless reservoir of emotions to pull from.  She equally is brilliant here tortured in silence as she is when she is frantic;  completely mesmerizing.  Law becomes the unlikely Hero through all of this, delivering perhaps his best work in quite some time, craftily plotting his way to sweet redemption and Zeta-Jones as we know from her Oscar-winning work  Chicago, is at her best when she’s bad and she is outright voracious here.

eOne Films releases the  “insanely” good  Side Effects on February 8, 2013.  Mara-velous, really.