What starts out as a pharmaceutical soap opera turns on a
dime into an identity thriller, a psychological, behind-the-scenes power play
between doctor and patient, where there’s some question about who’s really in
control, where blackmail and embezzlement are commonplace, turning this into a
moral cesspool where one never knows who’s really holding the cards. This kind of deception takes on multiple
layers of fraud and behind-the-scenes shenanigans that may leave you shaking
your head in befuddled puzzlement, not in trying to figure it all out, but in
how cheesy it all plays out, becoming overly obvious by the end instead of
remaining a mystery. Except for an HBO
made-for-TV Liberace movie called Behind
the Candelabra starring Michael Douglas, this is the final movie Soderbergh
has lined up, as he intends to take his theatrical abilities elsewhere,
supposedly directly into theater, hoping to direct stage plays and perhaps
write. Soderbergh has always made
cutting edge films, even the ones that didn’t work were always technically
proficient, beautifully shot by the director himself, where he is known for a
clean and luminous look to his films.
This one is no exception, as Soderbergh, director, cinematographer, and
editor all rolled into one, has always been in the forefront in making quality
digital films, where TRAFFIC (2000) ushered in a new era of filmmaking,
allowing cameramen to use smaller and more lightweight, highly mobile cameras,
making him somewhat responsible for changing the direction of the movie
industry away from actual film, for better or for worse, and while others may
have failed miserably in making the transition, Soderbergh’s films have
continued to look first rate, often indistinguishable from real film. Lately, perhaps due to more conventional
scripts, Soderbergh’s films have failed to impress at the elite level of
filmmaking, and while always interesting, none have achieved the level of
mastery exhibited prior to his baffling venture into commercial Hollywood
filmmaking with OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001).
While there’s much about this film that works brilliantly,
such as the opening sequence where a camera stares from outside a Manhattan building,
slowly panning its way inside one particular window where it witnesses the
bloody aftermath of a murder, made all the more alluring by the intricately
quiet and complex music by Thomas Newman, easily the best thing in the movie. The movie backtracks several months where a
young girl, Emily, played by Rooney Mara, who happens to be the great
grand-daughter of Art Rooney, the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers, is seen
trying to gussy herself up for a prison visit with her husband Martin (Channing
Tatum), who is nearing the end of his four-year sentence for inside
trading. Emily’s pale and ghost-like
appearance suggests the look of a mannequin with fragile, already shattered
interior nerves, a woman who turns to prescription medication as a way of handling
her anxiety concerning her husband's upcoming release from prison. When he’s released, she crumbles into deeper
despair, inexplicably driving a car head-on into a cement wall, where she
survives intact, even more vacant eyed than she was before, but finding herself
under the care of a busy hospital shrink Dr. Banks (Jude Law), who treats her
with various medicines, but she’s a difficult patient, as she struggles with
each and every one, complaining of various side effects which leave her nearly
debilitated and unable to function. At
his wits end, he consults her previous psychiatrist, Dr. Siebert, Catherine
Zeta-Jones, looking matronly with her hair pulled back in a bun and wearing
glasses, who suggests the use of a new medicine on the market. Having tried everything else with no success,
with Emily reduced to zombie status where she’s either sleepless and lethargic
all the time or a sleepwalker, up at all hours of the night behaving
peculiarly, remembering nothing afterwards, Dr. Banks desperately tries
Siebert’s recommendation, which seems to be having a beneficial effect until
one of the strange side effects of the drug kicks in with disastrous results,
explaining the opening sequence.
Charged with murder, Emily is sentenced to a psychiatric
hospital, innocent by reason of insanity, where she remains under strict
psychiatric care. Due to the fallout
from the press, the focus of all the public attention turns on the doctor
(Banks) who prescribed the drug, blaming him for the crime, where in the
process he loses his practice (from all the negative publicity) and his wife
(who receives incriminating evidence implicating her husband sexually with the
patient), growing increasingly obsessed by what he finds to be strange
coincidences behind Emily and Dr. Siebert, who was working for the drug
manufacturer at the time she recommended this particular drug. Banks begins to think there’s a secret
conspiracy going on behind the scenes, where the film suddenly shifts from a
pharmaceutical melodrama where Banks has lost everything, desperate to hold
onto any shred of his former self, his life literally crumbling before our
eyes, into a sophisticated blackmail scheme pitting two accomplished psychiatrists
against one another, where the patient herself may hold the key to unlocking
this myriad of strange incidents that have led not only to her arrest but to
his sudden downfall. Paranoia fills the
air with possible conspiracies, where the police have zero interest, as the
case is closed, where all of this accumulating behind-the-scenes drama begins
to take center stage, a continuously shifting balance of power that turns into
a creepy thriller. Just as baffling, the
public, which was initially so outraged, loses all interest in the case, where
Banks himself has become collateral damage, a peculiar side effect to all the
strange and bizarre occurrences that led to a perception that Emily was just a
victim of circumstances. Once the police
and public perception reaches a neat and tidy conclusion, it’s hard to alter
what appears to be yesterday’s headlines, as all of Banks’s attempts to clear
his name have an unflatteringly self-centered motivation behind them. The film is ultimately undone by the
melodramatic overkill that attempts to shift the audience’s interest in a
whodunit, so to speak, where it becomes less a pharmaceutically inspired,
psychological horror story, as alluded to initially, and more of a simple
murder mystery that unravels the old fashioned way, through lies, blackmail,
and deception, revitalizing the mood of 40’s shadowy film noirs. Unfortunately, this final chapter comes
together all too easily, where the audience’s sympathies in the end are likely
to feel cheated.
