WORDS Oliver Nolan

Steven Soderbergh recently announced (not for the first time) his retirement as a director, marking the end of a long, increasingly prolific career. Since 2011, Soderbergh has released four films, Contagion, Haywire, Magic Mike, and now Side Effects, with a Liberace HBO production set to be his final project. If his claims prove to be true (he may simply be wrecked) then Soderbergh has gone out on a high, beguiling note with this head-spinning and enjoyable, if ultimately far-fetched, psychological thriller.

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is a young married woman whose husband (Soderbergh-regular Channing Tatum) has just been released from prison. Finding she is slipping into depression and becoming suicidal, an episode finds Emily seeking the help of Dr Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who prescribes her a series of medication which result in sleep-walking and other unusual, increasingly worrying behaviour. A fatal encounter, foreshadowed in the opening scene, changes everything. From here on in, things begin to get very messy for all involved.

With Mara the clear lead, it initially seems that Law’s top billing on the film’s promotional materials might be down to his longer-lived star status. Yet while the first half of Side Effects is rooted almost entirely in Emily’s perspective, we are later led to identify completely with Banks.

From here, the film mutates from being a timely cautionary tale of a highly medicated nation (“We see the ads. We believe,” a character cynically observes) into . . . well, that would be telling, really. Much of the enjoyment in watching Side Effects is achieved through going in blindfolded, and the film’s deliberately ambiguous marketing push – “Contagion with drugs” – has ensured that most indeed will, though perhaps at the expense of the box-office.

Sadly, the film’s final act piles twist upon twist to the point where coherence begins to dwindle, with some revelations feeling particularly convoluted and overly sensational. That said, repeat viewings might be in order to fully appreciate the intricacies of Scott Z. Burns’ script.

Law proves to be clever casting, our wavering sympathy for the character suited to an actor who has played almost as many villains as heroes. Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones provide ample support in limited roles, while Mara, in her first lead since her Oscar-nominated turn in David Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo, proves once again a mesmerising presence, simultaneously fragile and enigmatic. Soderbergh’s “final” cinematic release is a well-realised if occasionally convoluted potboiler.