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What do you doctors call faking? Malingering? Such a funny word. Girls learn to fake things at a very early age - probably around the same time that boys are learning to lie.
~ Emily revealing her talent for lying

Emily Taylor is the main antagonist in the 2013 film Side Effects directed by Steven Soderbergh. She is a once wealthy femme fatale who, along with her psychiatrist and lover, concocts a scheme to murder her husband, get away with it by blaming her actions on antidepressants, and get rich by investing in a rival pharmaceutical company.

She was portrayed by Rooney Mara, who later played The Sisters in Kubo and the Two Strings.

Biography[]

As a young woman, Emily marries wealthy stockbroker Martin Taylor, whom she meets while working as a bartender. When Martin is arrested and imprisoned for insider trading, he is ruined financially, costing Emily the lavish lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. Emily hates Martin for taking away the life she had always dreamed of, and begins plotting to kill him.

As part of her master plan, Emily goes to psychiatrist Victoria Siebert, faking the symptoms of clinical depression. Victoria, a closeted lesbian, becomes obsessed with Emily, and they become lovers. With Victoria's knowledge of psychiatric disorders and Emily's knowledge of the stock market, they set into motion a plan to kill Martin and get rich.

After Martin is released from prison, Emily fakes a suicide attempt by crashing her car into her company's parking lot wall. She is then prescribed anti-depressants by psychiatrist Jonathan Banks. Victoria "bumps into" Jonathan during a medical conference and recommends that he prescribe his patients Ablixa, a new, much-hyped antidepressant.

When Emily claims that her prescription does not work and fakes another suicide attempt by almost stepping in front of a subway train, Jonathan prescribes her Ablixa. She begins faking the pills' side effects, one of them being bouts of sleepwalking (a side effect "observed" by Victoria).

One night, when Martin comes home, Emily is making dinner while in a faked trance, cutting vegetables with a large chef's knife. Emily then stabs Martin to death before she fakes the scene of her discovery of Martin's murder (tears on her pillows, etc.). Emily is soon arrested for murder.

In the resulting court case, Emily pleads insanity after Jonathan evaluates her and finds her behavior during the time of the murder consistent with substance-induced psychosis. Emily is found not responsible for Martin's murder under the condition that she stay in a mental institution until cleared by a psychiatrist. With Ablixa being blamed for Martin's murder, the company's stock prices plummet, while those of a rival drugmaker soar. Emily and Victoria having bought stock in the competing company before the murder, get rich from the stocks' increase in value.

Meanwhile, Jonathan's career in shambles after the case's bad publicity, and his wife leaves him and takes their son after it comes out that a female former patient had sued him for sexual harassment; she is unaware that the patient in question had been severely mentally ill and obsessed with him. He uncovers evidence that Emily may have faked her suicide attempts. To make sure, he conducts a therapy session with Emily, giving her what he says is a truth serum. She fakes grogginess from the serum during the session, unaware that the serum was actually a saline placebo, thus confirming Jonathan's suspicions.

Jonathan tries to prevent Victoria from seeing Emily through legal means and making Emily believe that Victoria is selling her out for a better deal. Emily falls for it and explains her plot to Jonathan in order to strikes a bargain with him: in return for Emily incriminating Victoria and giving Jonathan a large sum of money to restart his medical practice, Jonathan will release Emily from the psychiatric ward under his care and supervision.

Later, Emily sees Victoria again and they begin to make love. Victoria admits the details and her role in Martin's murder, which is picked up by a wire worn by Emily, and the police arrive to arrest Victoria. Because of double jeopardy, Emily is no longer criminally responsible for Martin's murder, and thus, can go free.

Still angry at Emily for nearly ruining his professional and personal life, Jonathan gets back at her by prescribing an unnecessarily large dosage of antidepressants with serious side effects; as part of her plea deal, Emily must submit to urine tests to prove she is taking her medication, under the threat of going back to prison. Enraged, Emily goes to Jonathan's office and rants about all that she had done to kill Martin and get away with it. A policeman, Emily's lawyer, and Martin's mother overhear everything she says outside Jonathan's door, and Emily is arrested and sent back to the psychiatric ward, where she is rendered near-catatonic by the medication Jonathan prescribed her.

Trivia[]

  • Though Emily and Victoria both serve as the main antagonists of the film, Emily is the more dangerous of the two because she had bigger plans than Victoria and even betrayed her.
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