Side Effects(2013)- User Reviews

I normally love Jude Law's work. This was okay but not that great. I normally like C. Zeta-Jones' work also. I found them both pretty bland and flat. I was not too fond of the rest, either.

It seems like they tried to fit too much complicity into one plot. I like twists when they're done well. But the partners kicking Banks out of the practice so explosively, Banks begging his then former partner for Adderall, the session with Banks about the sleepwalking, Banks sitting on a sofa next to his patient in a public lobby for a mini-session and seemingly touching her person, and Banks' wife all seemed forced, contrived, and did not flow. There were so many different things that they tried to pull together and could not do it cohesively. It was like trying to eat a meal where the flavors were all over the place and none made sense together.

The loooong time that it took to get to the actual murder was a bit much. (I'm a John Sayles fan, so I appreciate slow drama as long as it works. I do not require a video-game pace.) If the intention was for the audience to feel the monotony that Rooney Mara's character felt while waiting to rid herself of her husband, it would be understandable. But since we get a only a tiny hint at the beginning that she doesn't want him home and don't find out enough about it until close to the end, it comes off as too slow with too much backstory being stuffed in.

The point where I almost walked out was the bizarre seduction of Dr. Siebert. I like erotica when it adds to the story but this was totally stupid. The married yuppie from Greenwich seduces her older, probably lesbian shrink? It stinks of really bad porn and looked like it, too.

The scenes and moments I most liked were when Rooney Mara's character drove into the wall, the murder (which I thought was stunning and phenomenal), the train moment, Siebert's phone message and the phone conversations with Banks.

I understand why some people on here reference Hitchcock in their reviews of this movie because of the more interesting moments. But in the end, I still wasn't sure if she killed her husband simply because she was THAT mad at him for his insider trading and loss of money. If so, I feel robbed of 2 hours because that's not a good enough reason to go to all that trouble. Oh yeah, there was the miscarriage that she also faulted him for...and then I can't even remember if that baby thing was real or another lie. And that seems to be the bottom line of the movie - nothing memorable but the tedium of one contrivance after another and mediocre acting. I expected much better.