"Side Effects" (2013)

"Side Effects" (2013)

From time to time you see a movie you don't want to review, because the less the audience knows about it, the more they'll enjoy it. Let's just say that "Side Effects", said to be director Steven Soderbergh's last film, is one of those movies. And that I think it's safe to discuss the first five minutes of the movie, and after that you're pretty much on your own.

Rooney Mara ("Girl With The Dragon Tattoo") is an emotionally fragile woman whose husband, (Channing Tatum) is just finishing a three-year stretch for insider trading. She seeks help for her bouts of depression from psychologist Jude Law, just as she did earlier from psychologist Catherine Zeta Jones.

Let's just say that all is not what it seems. Lying, cheating, suicide and corruption become topics of conversation.

I can tell you the performances are impeccable, the writing tight, and the suspenseful movie that emerges from this basic set-up is a twisty meditation on our growing chemical dependence, the industry that supports it, and the...oh, the heck with it. Just see it.

If this really is Soderbergh's last movie, he went out on a high note indeed. An "A."
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