Side Effects
to some extent i’m sympathetic with <PERSON> thoughts: the shallow focus mirrors the audience’s constant scramble for immediate (apparent) facts with which to approximate some understanding of the underlying systems. the lynchpin for this take imho is a terrific focus-shift halfway-through that i rewound thrice just to gasp again all giddy. but still i’m wary how many readings seem to account only for villainy that’s double, not triple (bourgeois scientific practice) or quadruple (<PERSON>, truly the scariest person here for me), and ultimately i can’t keep all that interested in a film so fascinated by nastiness yet so unable to comprehend it. 306
i appreciate exhortations to take this as lurid trash! but i prefer when trash is fun.
(actually scratch that. i have a feeling <PERSON>’s not a villain at all. or at least so minimally that this ending’s genuinely the most unsettling i’ve seen all year.) 577