Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh, 2013)

Despite his repeatedly stated intention to retire from making feature films, Soderbergh is still churning them out, but the returns are diminishing. With this would-be Hitchcockian thriller, he does manage that curate's egg of wrangling a decent performance out of Jude Law, as a psychiatrist trying out a series of antidepressants on a disturbed young woman, but the film falters at what it sets its stall out to do, namely providing suspenseful twists. When his patient kills her husband, purportedly under the influence of a new experimental drug, the whole incident is shown in unambiguous detail and therefore leaves no room for doubt beyond that to do with her level of mental impairment at the time, and the sub-plot involving defrauding drug companies is too crude to add much depth either. It is strong on atmosphere and tautly cut, which are perennial virtues of the director's work, but this time around there is not enough substance to sustain the whole caboodle.

5/10