*** Side Effects (February 2013) – Theatre

Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Twisty story featuring a young woman with depression, her husband released from prison after serving his sentence for insider trading, and the woman’s current and former psychologists.

She says: I never could guess where this one was going, as the power and viewpoint shifted from one character to another. The side effects of the title refer to the fact that all the medications the young woman takes to manage her depression have side effects, and one in particular gets the plot moving through its disturbing paces.

I don’t want to say too much as the whole fun of this movie is watching the elaborate plot unfold, but it struck me in particular how the story says your sympathies should shift from one character to another as secrets are revealed, that doesn’t quite happen. Instead, you really end up sympathetic to no one, just shaking your head at how people can be.

He says: OK, yes, that was enough plot. And no, I didn’t guess how it would go. It was just mind-bending following all that.