Side Effects

The media could not be loaded. This is a fun and really good indie dramedy based on a true story. First of its kind regarding BigPharma which did well at festivals and was featured In USA Today and got great reviews in other mags. Disappeared after being picked up by Warner and New Line and Katherine Heigl got ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ Wish it were available on Amazon. Little movie with a big heart. People would enjoy it. And fun soundtrack and solid lead actors!

This movie has a lot of strikes against it - the different "locations" are frequently the same room with furniture rearranged. Narrative devices like text on screen or interlude interviews are picked up and abandoned at random. Subplots (in particular, those involving Karly's best friend and the rest of her family) are never resolved, and the dialogue is frequently clunky exposition of company rhetoric. Many of the supporting actors are obviously not in the same league as the main players, and it's not hard to predict the plot points of the film.But the movie has heart and a winning lead actress in Katherine Heigl, and this movie has become one of my guilty pleasures. As a medical professional, I have heard all of the arguments for and against drug reps as depicted in this film, but the scenes where Karly shows how hard it is to do her job were particularly convicting. Corporate ethics aside, these are personal issues, and most of these people are just trying to pay the bills. The movie really humanizes the industry reps, even if the characters themselves aren't exactly three-dimensional.And yes, Katherine Heigl takes her top off. Twice. I would consider it exploitative except that she executive produced this movie, and in that case, if you've got it, flaunt it. The brief nudity does fit logically into the scenes.In the end, I recommend watching this movie with as light a heart as possible (and a little vodka, if you've got it). It's not revolutionary, but it raises good discussion points, and it will give you a fix until you can see Katherine Heigl on the far superior Grey's Anatomy.

I gave this movie three stars because .... Well.. I have this thing for Katherine Heigle. And the 2.3 seconds of her topless is a score!But the rest of he movie sucked. The topic is one that deserves a serious treatment and that can even be in the quirky-romantic-comedy format but this one was not well executed. The scenes jumped from one to another with an anoying lack of continuity. And the big sell - the message that the evil drug companies sell poison at obscene profits with no regard to the patients they serve - was unbalanced and ham-fisted. You know, SOME of those drugs DO save lives and not everybody that runs a business for profit is evil.The closing scenes contrast the thousands of drug sales reps and the billions spent on drug advertising (without ever mentioning the costs of R&D, testing, and certification) against the measley $190,000 to make the movie.They should have spent a few thousand more.BTW As enjoyable as the topless scene was it, like many of the scenes, seemed akwardly out of synch. Almost to the point of being gratuitous.

Couldn't believe the great price and fast delivery I got on this DVD. Would absolutely purchase from this vendor again. I really liked the movie too, but I'm a big Katherine Heigl fan and would probably like anything she's in. It was a little choppy, but that was probably due to the fact than it was very low budget indie film done by a first time director in a very short time frame. Be sure to watch the extras with the director who is an ex-drug rep and you'll understand.

Karly (Heigel) is guided into becoming a medicinal drug representative, although she has "never taken a science class". She is taught that the 'secret' of a salespersons success lies in highlighting the benefits of the product to be sold and hiding or making light of the negatives. This movie depicts Karly's (Heigel) struggle between continuing to earn thousands of dollars by concealing the dangerous side effects of the medication she is selling and her conscience. Done right, this may have been an informative watch, however this movie itself is really bad. Please listen to the reviewers who label it as such.I am completely perplexed about why a successful high profile actress like Katherine Heigel would agree to star in this mundane, embrassing project. I can only conclude that she did it to bring awareness for personal reasons(like maybe a family member or a friend of hers has been hurt by a medicinal drug). Perhaps some of the profits from this movie were being donated to a charitable cause that she supports or maybe she got contractually trapped. Whatever the reason,even she, as the sole capable actress in the entire cast, looks bad.In essence this is a homemade-like movie with scenes lasting about a minute before the many long and very obvious black outs spew across the screen. Katherines Heigels complexion appears shiny and blotchy due to the poor lighting or bad make-up or both. Her love interest is just not believable - an unemployed man with some unfortunate male pattern balding that looks more like a hair piece that slipped back to the middle of his also shiny head.Even I, as a medical professional, found the content boring, the presentation ridiculous, the flow choppy and the story line frustrating to follow. It was difficult to understand the significance of some of the actors in the movie. For example "Grace", Karly's African American friend/or room-mate/or caretaker (still not sure what her role was) and Karly's father, (who also sported a glowing hairless scalp), who pops up in the movie, for a minute (equivalent to one scene in this flick), shares a crude, stupid comment and disappears. Either these people were promised a part in this project, or included to try and tell us a little more about who Karly is and make us feel something for her, but failed in doing so. I believe the most likely explanation however is that this movie was probably twelve hours long and had to be cropped thereby eliminating all if any character development and adding to its choppiness. Certain actions were also confusing such as Karly's pill popping. Was it Advil tabs that she was throwing back or pills lifted from her sales stash? Could this have been a contributing cause to her personality change. Mood changes were not listed as a side-effect of the drug and the movie does center around non-disclosure of certain side effects.Her random med guzzling would make sense in this case. I doubt this to be the reason, however, as this would require some type of depth,something completely absent here.The final attempt to trap the viewer emotionally was the monologue of the spouse of a former patient. The scene synchronously flashed home album photos depicting the closeness of the spouse and his kindergartener partaking in different family activities. Unfortunately rather than touching the viewers heart the scene only reinforced the movies poor production quality as the quality of the home pics was 100% better.Before paying a penny or wasting any time on this unfortunate mish-mash, I would recommend watching the trailer on amazon. This is actually the beginning of "Side effects" and an accurate indicator of the flow and content of the entire movie. I read the negative reviews on this board but still went on to watch it figuring that as I am pretty tolerant of most negatively rated shows, have a lemons-to-lemonade type personality and love Katherine Heigel, I could overlook any negatives. I was wrong.Side Effects

Very pleased

This is an excellent film with superb actors, but most importantly it has a powerful message that we all need to hear. It has wonderful comedic moments, as well as heartfelt scenes.