Movie Review: Side Effects, Starring Katherine Heigl
The cover of this, makes it look like your run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. At least, that’s the excuse my dear sweet husband gave me, when half way through this rented DVD sort of looked at one another, and said, “WHAT is this!?”
He’d been in charge of rustling up the evenings entertainment, and my plea for a chick flick had not gone unheard. Or at least that’s what I thought.
The story starts out with Heigl shrieking at the top of her lungs, causing both my husband and I to leap out of our seats to adjust the volume, lest it wake the toddler. The very same toddler, who is suspected in the disappearance of the remote control, which necessitated the ‘leap’ in the first place.
A few minutes into the movie, we became aware of the fact that this was not going to be your average romantic comedy.
In fact we were very concerned that the apparent lack of quality of cinematography, and the fact that the line-up was completely devoid of familiar faces (except for Heigl herself) that this was going to be one of those moments that we discover that Heigl may have been involved in some kind of shady backyard movie, and at any moment people were going to leap out of their clothes with very little encouragement, and for no apparent reason.
Thankfully, this was not the case, and it turned out that what we were watching, was a kind of tongue in cheek pseudo-documentary about pharmaceutical reps (You know, the tall leggy types that sell prescription drugs to the medical establishment?) and whether or not they have consciences, develop consciences etc etc.
Without giving too much away, the movie was watchable enough to make it to the end, and discover the message behind the movie, and why it was filmed in such a manner.
The entire movie, cost only $190 000 (I’m guessing Heigl worked for free) to make, as opposed to the $15 000 000 000 (yes that’s fifteen billion dollars) that the pharmaceutical industry spends on the marketing of their products.
So, interesting look into the life of a pharmaceutical representatives life, and what drives them? Yes.
Savagely funny romantic comedy? No.
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