SIDE EFFECTS REVIEW
The movie opens with Tatum Channing a Wall Street trader, being released from jail and being reunited with his young wife Emily, played by Rooney Mara after being done for insider trading. They are in love, trying to overcome the stigma of the criminal conviction and get back to normal with their friends and family after 4 years apart and a whirlwind romance.
Emily suffers from depression and it is her mental state and her psychological history that is the backbone for this film.
Jude Law does a convincing job as
Emily's assigned psychiatrist after she attempts to kill herself, peddle to the metal into a brick wall.
Mara gives a compelling portrayal of a young women suffering with depression.
The story does have a few twists, one I don't feel I'm giving much away by talking about; Catherine Zeta Jones as an unconvincing lesbian psychiatrist with a ponytail and horn rims. It was all wrong.
That aside the film does show how ethically suspect the underbelly of the pharmacetical sector is. Drugs are big business, particularly when it comes to treatment of "mental illness" and this is spotlighted in the layering of the film.
The script is fresh and it is a good psych drama, for me it was just a little flat and dragged a little in places so I wouldn't watch again but don't let that put you off. It is a good film.
The ending was totally unexpected.