A number of prominent critics working in the United States today have described Steven Soderbergh's swan song as a post-modern Hitchcockian thriller. The movie, called "Side Effects" has more artsy qualities (more trick lenses and color-softened images) but does contain many of the same attributes the Master of Suspense himself was very fond of: an innocent man caught in a grotesquely complicated mess; the soft-eyed girl who is not what she seems to be; a subtle touch of homophobia. In particular, the movie recalls Hitchcock's very best movie "Vertigo." That one, as you may recall, had us convinced for about ninety minutes that it was a supernatural thriller—a ghost story blended with a romance—only to stomp on us in the final reel with the fact that we had been duped all along and there was nothing other-worldly about the plot to begin with. "Side Effects" does not take the exact same approach, but it does a stupendous job of fooling around with our minds, and then letting all of the secrets bombard us at the end. Thus, the final shot in the movie (a reversed image of the first) has a touch to poetry to it.
And the mystery is clever. If Soderbergh finally does carry out his threat to retire from Hollywood, he can at least boast his last movie caught us all off guard. Nobody walking out of this film can claim the ending was predictable unless they either read a synopsis before going in, had seen it already, or are pathetic liars vying for attention by posing as intellectuals.
The timing for this movie's release could not be better. Our memories are still fresh with Soderbergh's "Contagion," which I still honestly believe was the best movie to come out of the otherwise rotten year of 2011. That picture was praised by many, myself included, for taking an overworked premise and playing it out with a straight-forward, no-nonsense approach. So naturally, we would expect the same from "Side Effects"—except the plot this time concerns the possibly psychological effects of drugs as opposed to a worldwide epidemic. So the movie has a double-pleasure effect, the emphasis depending on which half we are watching at the time. In the beginning, I was appreciating the bold and interesting ways it dealt with the story of a severely depressed woman (Rooney Mara) and the way things spiraled out of control after being subjected to an experimental prescription drug. In the second half—the final thirty minutes, most of all—I was overwhelmed by the fact that the filmmakers had tricked me all along. And the double crosses, twists, and subplot denouements come at us in full force.
Scott Z. Burns, who composed the original screenplay, makes the right choice in how he reveals the answers. Frankly, it is ludicrous; it's not something we would believe, if given more than a few minutes to think, could really happen. And if it could, we doubt anybody would try to go through with this scheme (which involves a premeditated murder, double existences, and the stock market) because it is so complicated and there would be so many easier ways, in real life, to pull it off. But Burns smartly gives us the answers one after another and in such close proximity to one another that we do not have time to think about the plausibility (or lack thereof) until the film is over. And by that point, I was so giddily pleased, I did not care. After all, going back to "Vertigo" and the popular comparison of "Side Effects" to Hitchcock, the ending of the 1958 film boasted a secret that was also preposterous and convoluted, yet both movies are so absorbingly told that we swallow up every little point and detail thrown our way.
Steven Soderbergh has probably never made a perfect movie (he's made some near-perfect ones, like "Contagion") because he's constantly taking chances. So "Side Effects" has some loose ends, some weaknesses of its own. First and foremost, there are my small problems with the pacing. In the entire 106 minutes, there was never a long stretch where I was bored, but there were some small individual stretches (a few isolated scenes) that started to lose my interest. Example: a scene where the excellent actor Jude Law, as the psychiatrist who prescribes the supposedly mind-altering drugs, is questioned by a state attorney. The dialogue is good, but there's too many dead space, too many static shots, and it goes on for too long. Then there's Thomas Newman's music. A Steven Soderbergh movie always seems to have a sort of avant-garde feel to its soundtrack no matter who composes it. The soundtracks to this film, "Contagion," and another recent Soderbergh film, "Haywire," were all composed by different people, yet sound the same. It's subtle. But frequently, the artsy aspects bubble and pop too much, and the ending theme (which sounds too much like something we'd hear in an African tribal dance) is the only thing that softens an otherwise perfect ending.
Rooney Mara (who along with Jennifer Lawrence, Felicity Jones, and Ellen Page) is among the most interesting of young actresses today, deserves an Academy Award nomination for her (I can give this away) double-edged performance. Jude Law, once again playing a man who gets in trouble when fiddling with drugs, is also in excellent form and I hope he gets special recognition as well. There are other excellent performances (Catherine Zeta-Jones is marvelous as a fellow psychiatrist), but these two run away with the movie. The whole narrative relies upon their actions. And then there is the other big pleasure of watching a Steven Soderbergh movie—just looking at the images. Every shot is and flourished with color and contrast. To touch very lightly on the subject of Soderbergh's decision to retire: "Side Effects" defines brilliantly what we stand to lose in today's cinema.
And the mystery is clever. If Soderbergh finally does carry out his threat to retire from Hollywood, he can at least boast his last movie caught us all off guard. Nobody walking out of this film can claim the ending was predictable unless they either read a synopsis before going in, had seen it already, or are pathetic liars vying for attention by posing as intellectuals.
The timing for this movie's release could not be better. Our memories are still fresh with Soderbergh's "Contagion," which I still honestly believe was the best movie to come out of the otherwise rotten year of 2011. That picture was praised by many, myself included, for taking an overworked premise and playing it out with a straight-forward, no-nonsense approach. So naturally, we would expect the same from "Side Effects"—except the plot this time concerns the possibly psychological effects of drugs as opposed to a worldwide epidemic. So the movie has a double-pleasure effect, the emphasis depending on which half we are watching at the time. In the beginning, I was appreciating the bold and interesting ways it dealt with the story of a severely depressed woman (Rooney Mara) and the way things spiraled out of control after being subjected to an experimental prescription drug. In the second half—the final thirty minutes, most of all—I was overwhelmed by the fact that the filmmakers had tricked me all along. And the double crosses, twists, and subplot denouements come at us in full force.
Scott Z. Burns, who composed the original screenplay, makes the right choice in how he reveals the answers. Frankly, it is ludicrous; it's not something we would believe, if given more than a few minutes to think, could really happen. And if it could, we doubt anybody would try to go through with this scheme (which involves a premeditated murder, double existences, and the stock market) because it is so complicated and there would be so many easier ways, in real life, to pull it off. But Burns smartly gives us the answers one after another and in such close proximity to one another that we do not have time to think about the plausibility (or lack thereof) until the film is over. And by that point, I was so giddily pleased, I did not care. After all, going back to "Vertigo" and the popular comparison of "Side Effects" to Hitchcock, the ending of the 1958 film boasted a secret that was also preposterous and convoluted, yet both movies are so absorbingly told that we swallow up every little point and detail thrown our way.
Steven Soderbergh has probably never made a perfect movie (he's made some near-perfect ones, like "Contagion") because he's constantly taking chances. So "Side Effects" has some loose ends, some weaknesses of its own. First and foremost, there are my small problems with the pacing. In the entire 106 minutes, there was never a long stretch where I was bored, but there were some small individual stretches (a few isolated scenes) that started to lose my interest. Example: a scene where the excellent actor Jude Law, as the psychiatrist who prescribes the supposedly mind-altering drugs, is questioned by a state attorney. The dialogue is good, but there's too many dead space, too many static shots, and it goes on for too long. Then there's Thomas Newman's music. A Steven Soderbergh movie always seems to have a sort of avant-garde feel to its soundtrack no matter who composes it. The soundtracks to this film, "Contagion," and another recent Soderbergh film, "Haywire," were all composed by different people, yet sound the same. It's subtle. But frequently, the artsy aspects bubble and pop too much, and the ending theme (which sounds too much like something we'd hear in an African tribal dance) is the only thing that softens an otherwise perfect ending.
Rooney Mara (who along with Jennifer Lawrence, Felicity Jones, and Ellen Page) is among the most interesting of young actresses today, deserves an Academy Award nomination for her (I can give this away) double-edged performance. Jude Law, once again playing a man who gets in trouble when fiddling with drugs, is also in excellent form and I hope he gets special recognition as well. There are other excellent performances (Catherine Zeta-Jones is marvelous as a fellow psychiatrist), but these two run away with the movie. The whole narrative relies upon their actions. And then there is the other big pleasure of watching a Steven Soderbergh movie—just looking at the images. Every shot is and flourished with color and contrast. To touch very lightly on the subject of Soderbergh's decision to retire: "Side Effects" defines brilliantly what we stand to lose in today's cinema.