Side Effects
Open Road Films | Release Date: February 8, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
4
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Film.comJordan HoffmanFeb 26, 2013
He’s taken what, on paper, boils down to an extra ridiculous episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” and passes it off as high cinematic art. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc MohanFeb 7, 2013
By the time the satisfying conclusion rolls around, though, it proves to be much more about the ability of a world-class director to induce such willing suspension of disbelief that even the loopiest narrative developments seem like the most natural thing in the world. Read full review
90
TimeRichard CorlissFeb 9, 2013
Side Effects virtually demands a three-word review: Just see it. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 7, 2013
This clever bag of tricks is made with so much cinematic skill it makes implausibility irrelevant. What happens on screen is unapologetically far-fetched, but it unfolds with enough panache to make turning away out of the question. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 7, 2013
In another sense, though, everything is exactly what it seems, expertly crafted and cleverly compounded for high-dose entertainment. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 7, 2013
While the plot may be predictable (and more than a little preposterous) in retrospect, Mr. Soderbergh handles it brilliantly, serving notice once again that he is a crackerjack genre technician. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaFeb 6, 2013
Ultimately, think of the movie as a puzzle box in which all the pieces fit together wonderfully well. Once you step back and take a look at how it’s all put together, you have to marvel at how cleverly constructed the whole thing is. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaFeb 7, 2013
Side Effects, chilly and noirish, and boasting a wily performance from Catherine Zeta-Jones as a therapist who worked with Emily earlier in her adulthood, is, Soderbergh says, his swan song. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertFeb 6, 2013
Imagine music for a sorcery-related plot and then dial it down to ominous forebodings. Without Thomas Newman's score, Side Effects would be a lesser film, even another film. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 6, 2013
Side Effects is Soderbergh in full, flinty vigor. It's anything but a formula murder mystery. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineScott WoldApr 3, 2018
Unsurprisingly, the substance of a movie genre is again enriched with his latest, masterfully spare and confident effort. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasFeb 6, 2013
Like his underappreciated "Haywire," Side Effects screws around in its own thriller architecture, toying with feints of structure and clever bits of misdirection, and otherwise playing the audience like a fiddle. At this point in his career, Soderbergh pulls it off with the unpracticed ease of a maestro. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanFeb 6, 2013
Side Effects is mostly a good Saturday-night movie, but by the end, it's caused a few unintended side effects of its own: a bit of head-scratching, and a giggle or two of disbelief. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 5, 2013
The scenes pile up with frenetic intensity; as with Soderbergh's other recent exercises in the suspense genre, no single cutaway goes wasted. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerMar 4, 2013
We may lose Soderbergh to painting, theatre and HBO-fuelled TV, and that’s a crying shame. If that’s the case, Side Effects is a great note on which to go out. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierFeb 7, 2013
The movie respects a viewer’s intelligence, which should also serve as a warning; don’t be lulled into a stupor. Keeping sharp will allow all the fun and menace in this terrific thriller to seep into your head. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonFeb 5, 2013
If Side Effects, an immensely pleasurable thriller centering around psychotropic drugs, really is Steven Soderbergh's final big-screen film, as the director claims it will be, then he has peaked in the Valley of the Dolls. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFeb 4, 2013
Soderbergh’s alleged last theatrical film is paranoid and hopeless, but he leaves the field with a bounce in his step. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangJan 25, 2013
Steven Soderbergh's elegantly coiled puzzler spins a tale of clinical depression and psychiatric malpractice into an absorbing, cunningly unpredictable entertainment that, like much of his recent work, closely observes how a particular subset of American society operates in a needy, greedy, paranoid and duplicitous age. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenFeb 7, 2013
You never really see any of it coming, which is what makes the film such a marvel – and so difficult to discuss. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 8, 2013
A sleekly clever murder mystery, the film plays as many games with the audience as it does with its characters, and for the majority of the running time — the challenge comes from matching wits with what you’re seeing. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezFeb 8, 2013
The main thing to keep in mind while watching Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Side Effects is not to take the movie too seriously or else you’ll feel betrayed by the end. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyFeb 7, 2013
But it’s Rooney who commands the most attention. As she already proved in David Fincher’s "The Social Network" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," she has an oddly fascinating screen presence, suggesting both vulnerability and inscrutable levels of calculation. Few actors or actresses can make inexpressiveness look so smart. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickFeb 7, 2013
I walked out of Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects thinking to myself, “Finally, a mainstream 2013 movie I can whole-heartedly recommend’’ — then quickly added, “well, except that it will probably piss off a sizeable portion of the target audience.’’ Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 7, 2013
It's a gripping, maddening and thoroughly satisfying thriller, made with artfulness and integrity. Soderbergh sees things in his actors and gets things from them that other directors don't. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 7, 2013
With Rooney Mara as the woman in question — a poised, tense Manhattanite prescribed anti-anxiety medication by her psychiatrist with newsworthy results — Side Effects finds its ideal performer. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 7, 2013
There's something delightfully old-fashioned about Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects. It's the kind of thriller that Alfred Hitchcock might make if he was still alive and active today. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreFeb 5, 2013
Steven Soderbergh, rightly considered one of Hollywood’s smartest movie makers, is at his cleverest in Side Effects, a canny, cunning big idea thriller in a minor key, an engrossing zeitgeist whodunit about Wall Street, Big Pharma, prescription drugs and the power we give psychiatry and psychologists. Read full review
75
The PlaylistDrew TaylorFeb 3, 2013
The picture's conspiratorial late-night tone and fleshy after hours luridness was practically built for watching at night, when our parents think we've gone off to bed (think '80s films directed by folks like Adrian Lyne). Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbyFeb 9, 2013
In Side Effects, the working out of the thriller plot is accomplished with too much verbal explanation. [11 & 18 Feb. 2013, p.114]
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirFeb 7, 2013
It’s masterfully shot and edited, with a brooding soundtrack and a mysterious, dreamlike undertow – and, when all is revealed, it’s not even half as interesting as it seems to be. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensFeb 7, 2013
Some of these revelations feel like clever reversals, others like calculated rug-pulls, but we never stop caring about what happens next. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 8, 2013
Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns maintain a tone of taut creepiness, but the plot’s double and triple crosses are more ingenious than believable. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJan 25, 2013
Like Magic Mike, Side Effects is enlivened by Soderbergh's jazzy style and laidback moralism, bringing to mind the work of another connoisseur of genre, Robert Altman. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichFeb 5, 2013
It’s a reasonably diverting piece of work, falling somewhere between the high of "Magic Mike" (2012) and the low of "Haywire" (2011), among his recent efforts. Read full review
50
USA TodayScott BowlesFeb 7, 2013
Like a lot of meds, it loses its effectiveness over time, and you'll build a resistance to Effects eventually, particularly when it dissolves into a standard crime flick. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayFeb 7, 2013
Like a gel cap in a sip of orange juice, the psycho-pharmacological thriller Side Effects goes down easily, even if its long-term impact turns out to be barely dis­cern­ible. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 3, 2013
In trying to merge this alarmist theme with an old-fashioned murder mystery, the filmmakers throw at least one plot-twist sucker-punch too many, leaving the viewer with an “Oh, come on” reaction to the entire film. Read full review
35
NPRMark JenkinsFeb 8, 2013
The movie maintains its sense of style throughout, but that hardly matters as the story just gets stupider and stupider. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedFeb 6, 2013
What it turns out to be is a preposterous puzzle that fails every test under scrutiny, leaving the spectator with a “Huh?” that is meant to be uttered only while chewing gum. Read full review
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