The trick, or treat, that is ‘Side Effects’

by Bert B. Sulat Jr. Posted on 06/11/2013 2:17 PM |Updated 06/11/2013 2:34 PM

GOOD GIRLS GONE... Catherine Zeta-Jones (right) and Rooney Mara play shadowy figures in 'Side Effects.' All photos from the Side Effects Movie Facebook page

MANILA, Philippines - The interesting Side Effects comes to theaters with some interesting, real-life trivia.

For one thing, this will be the last big-screen movie from American director Steven Soderbergh in a long while, if not for good. This is due in part to his difficult experience in getting financing for his newer, biographical Liberace film Behind the Candelabra (which wound up being financed by HBO and is thus a cable TV release).

Side Effects also features a fictitious drug for manic depressives or those with bipolar disorder the latter a condition that does afflict one of the films cast members, Catherine Zeta-Jones. And one of the movies lead characters gets mired in a sensational, paparazzi-luring controversy and the character is portrayed by sometime tabloid pet, Jude Law.

Yet Soderbergh, who had helmed hits such as his Oceans trilogy, Out of Sight, Erin Brokovich and Magic Mike as well the lesser-known likes of The Limey, Solaris and The Girlfriend Experience, is not one to wing it and simply play up a given projects broad appeal.

Side Effects itself, as scripted by Soderberghs Contagion writer-collaborator Scott Z. Burns, is a brooding, subtle effort, one whose baser impulses are kept from verging into bombast. It has not even hyped the fake drug that is central to its story, though Soderbergh et al. did bother to make a promotional fake video about it.

WHATS UP, DOC? Jude Law plays a physician who gets a dose of his own bad medicine

In other words, as with pretty much everything the 50-year-old Soderbergh has made, this silver-screen swan song of his is less the output of a shock-and-awe hack and more the opus of a surprise-and-wow craftsman.

Rooney Mara, her brief, meek turn in The Social Network and lengthier, ballsy gig as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo still fresh in many minds, is Side Effects lead star until the narrative unravels and the spotlight gets trained on Law. The film constantly finds its pulse in their dynamic as, respectively, a depressed gal and her concerned doctor. (Law, with his receding hairline and small, oval face, is strongly reminiscent of Terence Stamp as Hollywoods earlier General Zod.)

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The trick, or treat, that is ‘Side Effects’