Sunday, February 10, 2013
"Side Effects": Shrinks and "The Cheating Culture"
Steven Soderbergh likes dramas based on institutional or
corporate corruption of some kind, and “Side Effects”, ultimately about the
collusion between the mental health establishment and pharmaceutical companies,
fits his mold. The trouble, for me at least, is that none of the characters is
very likeable.
The film opens as Emily (Rooney Mara) finds her husband
Martin (Channing Tatum) stabbed in their posh Manhattan apartment. The film shifts back three months, and soon
we learn that Rooney was being treated for depression (by Dr. Siebert,
Catherine Zeta-Jones) and that her husband was getting out of jail (not free
like in Monopolyu), after doing countryclub time for insider trading (he
probably made a profit by shorting all those mortgage derivatives). She tries to end herself by slamming her car
into a parking garage wall (sorry, there’s an air bag). She gets a mild concussion, and soon falls
under the treatment of the psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law).
m
This is probably a good place to mention the 2004 book by
Princeton professor David Callahan, “The Cheating Culture” (Book review blog,
March 28, 2006). Callahan discussed the pressure physicians come under from
drug companies to prescribe new and exotic medications and sometimes
overmedicate the patient. A dentist once
hocked a $100 waterpik device on me.
Is isn’t too hard to predict where this can go. Or maybe it is, unless you believe the
sleepwalking defense (which has been covered on 20-20) – here as a “side effect”
of the meds (as well as vomiting). Emily winds up in an “institution” as an “m.p.”,
gets persuaded by watching an electroshock treatment, and pretty soon has to
connive with the doctor.
Banks lives the high-life, dealing with divorce and putting
his son through a private school (to learn the “Gossip Girl” values), and
will do anything to meet his own economic ends.
He had come over to the US from Britain because, across the pond and
under a salaried National Health environment (to the pleasure of Michael
Moore), patients didn’t get better.
That the conniving would be allowed seems a little hard to
believe.
The link for the film (Open Road) is here.
The last shot is rather telling as to what kind of life an institutionalized "not guilty" patient can look forward to.
I saw this at the late show Saturday night at the AMC Courthouse in Arlington VA, small auditorium, sold out, with reclining seats. The earlier show had been sold out when I got there.
The film could be compared to "The Constant Gardener", 2005, Focus Features, directed by Fernando Merirelles. That film hit a little harder.
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