9 - Side Effects (2013)

In this highly enjoyable Hitchcockian thriller, the role of psychiatric medicine and its side effects forms the basis for the plot.

Housewife Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is having a psychiatric meltdown. Her husband Martin Taylor (Channing Tatum) has returned from prison, having served four years for inside trading. Emily’s response to her husband’s return is to begin sleepwalking. Then she rams her car into a wall, obviously an attempt to harm herself. When the psychiatrist on duty treats her, Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), she allows her to go home on the condition that she returns to his office. She becomes his patient. Dr. Banks tries different drugs with Emily, but most seem to have unwanted side effects—she has to be stopped from throwing herself in front of a train and her sleepwalking gets worse. Martin awakens one night to find her preparing a meal for three while still asleep.

[Spoiler alert] One evening Martin returns home to find his wife preparing a meal, cutting up vegetables. With no apparent reason, she stabs him to death. She then goes to bed and only in the morning realizes her husband is dead on the floor of their apartment.

Is Emily guilty? Was the murder the product of the new medication Dr. Banks had prescribed and for which he is getting paid? Is Dr. Banks culpable? Or is, perhaps, Emily not the victim she appears? Eventually Dr. Banks learns that he is not the first psychiatrist to treat her. He traces down and consults with Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who had treated Emily when her husband first went into prison. She suggests the problem lies with him.

Is Emily the victim of her doctors? Can Dr. Banks save his career?

With numerous Hitchcockian twists, Director Stephen Soderberg (Magic Mike, Oceans 11, Traffic) plays a pretty good game with us as to what is real and what is fake. As the film progresses, we switch our sympathies from Emily to Dr. Banks, but then find he may not be the innocent either.

The four main actors, helped by a literate script, do a good job of entertaining us. Jude Law plays the "perhaps innocent" victim caught in the middle, while Channing Tatum plays the Marian Crane/Janet Leigh part with charm. Mara and Zeta-Jones seem to relish their more complex characters, offering the viewer definite surprises.

The film may not be highly memorable, but it is an enjoyable ride worth seeing.

Side Effects (2013) ****