Plot: Emily
Taylor's husband Martin is released after serving a four-year prison sentence
for insider trading. Shortly
afterward, Emily drives her car into a concrete wall in an apparent suicide attempt. Jonathan Banks, her
assigned psychiatrist, fears for
her safety but agrees to her release from the hospital as long as she attends
sessions with him on a regular basis.
Emily tries a series of SSRI anti-depressant
medications, but none of them work. Jonathan contacts Emily's previous
psychiatrist, Victoria, who suggests that Jonathan put Emily on a new drug
called Ablixa. Jonathan is reluctant to put Emily on the experimental drug
until she attempts suicide a second time by trying to jump onto a subway track.
The medication works, enabling Emily to function normally besides occasional sleepwalking episodes, a side effect of the drug.
One evening, she stabs Martin to death while seemingly sleepwalking.
Emily is brought to trial, and
Jonathan fights for her acquittal. He is criticized publicly for fumbling
Emily's case, and his colleagues assume he has been negligent due to his heavy
work-load. Emily eventually agrees to plead
insanity; she is declared not guilty on the condition that she stay in a mental
institution until cleared by a psychiatrist.
Due to the case's bad publicity,
Jonathan's career is left in ruins. However, he sets out to clear his name and
uncovers evidence that not only did Emily fake her suicide attempts, but was
involved in a criminal conspiracy with Victoria. Jonathan interviews Emily
after administering what he claims is a truth
serum. Emily behaves as if she's groggy from the drug, which unbeknownst to her
is actually a placebo. This
confirms Jonathan's suspicions.
When Jonathan confronts Victoria
with his findings, she mails photographs to Jonathan's wife implying he had an
affair with Emily; Jonathan's wife and steps on leave him. Jonathan manages to turn
Emily and Victoria against each other by using legal means to prevent contact
between them and making each believe that her partner had sold her out to
Jonathan for a better deal.
Emily reveals the workings of the
plot to Jonathan: she enjoyed the rich life and hated Martin for causing her to
lose it. She specifically went to Victoria for counseling as she, too, had been
abandoned by her husband, and the two began a romantic and sexual relationship.
They taught each other about the workings of the financial world and faking
psychiatric disorders. They then went to elaborate means to fake the side
effects of Ablixa in order to manipulate the stock prices of the drug's
manufacturer and its competitor, allowing the duo to become rich in the
process.
Jonathan agrees to release Emily
from the psychiatric ward under his care. Wearing a wire, she immediately re-unites with
Victoria, who admits details of the plot to Emily. Victoria is arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, but
Emily, due to double jeopardy,
can no longer be held criminally responsible for her part in Martin's murder.
As retaliation for Emily's part in
the plot, Jonathan, who still technically oversees her case, prescribes her a
series of unnecessary drugs with serious side effects, threatening to send her
back to the ward if she refuses. Furious, Emily rants about all that she has
done to avoid being sent to prison for Martin's death. Unbeknownst to her,
Martin's mother, her lawyer, and a police officer are all outside the room and
hear the confession. The police take Emily into custody and send her back to
the mental ward.
In the final scene, Jonathan has
regained his normal life with his wife and step son. Emily sits in the ward, staring
blankly out the window. A psychiatric nurse asks Emily how she's feeling, and
she responds by saying apathetically: "Better. Much Better."
Original Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_Effects_(2013_film)
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