The last time we got a trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming thriller, Side Effects, it was a little too dream-like and abstract to really tell us what the movie was about. Rooney Mara was taking drugs of some sort, Channing Tatum tried to pull off wearing a fedora, Jude Law screamed a bunch, and apparently a murder got committed—but what order all of that happened in and who the good guys and the bad guys of the film were never quite got made clear.
Now the film is back with a new trailer made for the UK, and while this latest ad is still vague enough to remain intriguing, it manages to help clear up some of what’s going on. Apparently Mara’s character has been depressed since her husband was thrown in jail, her psychiatrist suggests that she might try some new medication, and a devious and sinister looking Catherine Zeta-Jones suggests that he give her an experimental new drug called Ablixa. That’s when the sleepwalkings, car crashings, sexy photos, and murders start happening. This time around Jude Law’s psychiatrist looks much more like a concerned doctor and much less like a creep, and Zeta-Jones’ drug pusher appears to be the clear villain… and the mystery of what Ablixa is takes center stage.
What do you think? Does this trailer make things clearer, or have we yet to see the twists and turns of this movie related to us in an honest way? We’ll finally get our chance to find out for sure when the film is released on February 8, but, until then, happy sleuthing.