Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects

Steven Soderbergh's new film Side Effects opened today and i saw it. Although the first half hour or so is a little slow, the film picks up the pace thereafter and just gets better and better. Side Effects is a paranoid thriller to end all paranoid thrillers. It has more twists and turns than a rattlesnake, so I won't say much about the plot. Rooney Mara plays a young wife, Emily Taylor, whose husband has just finished a prison sentence for securities fraud. Mara turned in another great performance, in a class with her great work in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Emily seeks help for clinical depression from a psychiatrist, played by the always excellent Jude Law. The doctor prescribes a new on the market anxiety mediation for her and therein lies the rest of the tale, which I won't even hint at. I will add that Kathryn Zeta Jones plays another shrink who had treated Emily earlier. After at first wondering what had convinced me to see another disappointing Soderbergh film, I ended up loving it. Highly recommended, 8 Stars out of 10. Had Side Effects hit its stride a little more quickly, I might have given it 10 Stars out of 10.

Great camera work is Soderbergh's forte. No wonder he is always his own cinematographer. As I hinted in my post starting the thread, I am not Soderbergh's biggest fan but when he gets it right, as he certainly did in Side Effects, he does wonderful work. I hope he keeps making films, too.

In Side Effects Mara was able to make Emily Taylor mysterious and a little chilly, while making her charming at the same time. That's not easy for any actress to do, especially one who looks like a fresh faced little ingenue from central casting.

Although it's probably a pipe dream, I too wish that Craig and Mara would reprise their Dragon Tattoo roles in the other two parts of the Millennium Trilogy. As you say, neither needs the money these days. Come to think of it, I don't think Mara ever needed the money. To put it mildly, her family is well fixed. Is Craig now definitely out of the lineup for the sequels? I haven't heard one way or the other.