Sleepwalking is to be expected when Rooney Mara starts taking a new anti-depressant in
Side Effects, but could those side effects also include...murder? Mara plays the psychologically rattled ingenue whose therapist (Jude Law) puts her on daring new drug. A prescription that may or may not be what causes her to kill adoring ex-con husband Channing Tatum. It's sort of a Prozac-fuelled
Primal Fear. Mara bounces between sullen and manic with ease, but it's Law that does most of the heavy lifting. His failing psychiatrist turned detective provides a needed second wind to the film's double plot. Less useful is all that upscale furnishing and colourful digital camera work, which oddly dissipates the tension Law's character is so desperately trying to maintain. It's typical low-tempo direction from Steven Soderbergh, who sadly makes this, one of his last films, extra Soderberghy.
—Jacob Boon
See our full review:
Soderbergh, why you gotta go out like this?
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