Side Effects - the 2013 film of Steven Soderbergh

Saw this film today. I thought it was splendid, very well acted, and holding you all the way. I won't betray anything of the complex plot, especially since the film IS the plot. Just a few remarks.​

Psychiatrist / psychotherapists play a key role in the film, two of them. Their power position and attention to financial success are vividly portrayed. Anti-depressants, their side effects (see title), and the whole pharma industry have pride of place in the plot. Clearly the pharma companies are even more driven by profit and financial greed.​

And yet, for me, the really interesting strengths of the film came in the portrayals of the small number of protagonists, their relationships and behaviour - showing what people are capable of.​ In good American tradition, overall the main actors have a lot of agency, are goal-directed, and have little problem about being very active and determined about getting what they want. I wish that people in general found it so easy to determine their goals and move towards achieving them! And the film had a positive Hollywood ending: people got what they deserved....

A worthy film - apparently Soderbergh's last one, and a testament to his talents.​

Here is the YouTube trailer.​

Footnote: On 26 March the Guardian published an interview with Donald Singer, a pharmacologist working for the NHS, who is a bit surprised at a psychiatrist moving from the UK to the US by choice, and who thinks that thanks to NICE and the yellow card scheme a similar situation of prescribing a "dicey" (my word!) drug would not happen in the UK. Food for thought!​