Since kicking off retirement, Steven Soderbergh has crafted
a hillbilly heist flick (Logan Lucky), helmed every episode
of a period medical drama (The Knick), created a weird
interactive movie/app thing (Mosaic), and produced a ton of
other projects. And just to prove he has more creative energy that the rest of
us combined, he found the time to use an iPhone to shoot the low-budget,
throwback horror thriller, Unsane.
What begins as a paranoid pot-boiler about a woman, Sawyer Valentini
(The Crown star Claire Foy), trapped in an insane asylum
against her will, becomes something else quicker than anticipated. The early
going focuses on the is-she-isn’t question in regards to her mental stability.
Does she really belong inside with the crazies or is she being railroaded and
gas-lit? She’s dealt with a stalker, David (Joshua Leonard), for years, who she
now sees everywhere; she’s prone to violent outbursts; she’s on all kinds of
meds. So it goes.
In this old school exploitation set up, the relative sanity
of the protagonist usually forms the narrative focus. But while Sawyer deals
with this on her own, Unsane answers the question in
definitive fashion in fairly short order. It’s not so much about the mystery as
it is about being a tense, twisted, mean-spirited thriller that gets downright
nasty and vicious; aims to take down the toxic, entitled pseudo “good guy”
mentality; and tries to make a larger point about corruption in a
medical/mental health industry that cares more about the numbers than actual
healing. And as grim and dark as it is, Unsane also carries
a blackly comic sense of gallows humor.
Claire Foy delivers a fantastic performance. She is
paranoid, and with good reason, even uprooting her life to move from Boston to
Pennsylvania to get away from her stalker. But she tight-ropes along the line
where the audience questions her grip on reality along with her. I don’t know
that she ever doubts it to the point where she truly believes, but she comes damn
close.
Sawyer’s not the most likeable character. She’s often abrupt
and abrasive at work and in her personal life, overly guarded and unwilling to
let anyone in, and in many ways flaunts typically masculine traits. Skewed
gender dynamics form a core theme throughout Jonathan Bernstein and James
Greer’s script. Her boss, her stalker, they all act with a sweeping sense of
entitlement and bulletproof male privilege. But when she exhibits similar
behavior—being sexually forward on a date, speaking plainly and straightforward
to a client, acting assertive and confident, or simply standing up for
herself—she’s viewed as off-putting, as cold, as a bitch.
David is an all-too-real depiction of a soft boy, one of
those men who believes he’s owed something because he’s a “nice guy.” He
watches and idealizes her from afar without ever actually knowing her, but
believes he understands her like no one else does, loves her like only he can,
and sees her true self like no one ever has, even though it’s all a baseless
fiction.
It’s taken to extremes here, but anyone who’s spend any time
on the internet, dealing with entitled trolls and noxious dudes who earnestly
feel they’re owed by strangers they follow on Twitter, especially from women, will
see eerie familiar behaviors that aren’t much removed from reality. David’s the
cinematic personification of a screen-grab we’ve all seen too many times—a dude
flirts with a woman online, and when she’s not interested, she instantly
becomes a snobby whore, uppity slut, or a similar lovely description. He’s
uncomfortably real, and Leonard plays him note-perfect, flipping from sniveling
to faux gentleman to unchecked, unearned rage. He’s absolutely skin-crawling.
Saturday Night Live alum Jay Pharoah
turns in a strong supporting turn. He plays Nate, one of Sawyer’s fellow
inmates. Funny and grounded and full of useful wisdom, he offers her a tether
to reality. But at the same time, he walks a similar line—maybe he doesn’t
really need to be there, maybe he has an ulterior motive, or may he is actually
crazy. I’ve never seen Pharoah do anything remotely like this, but it shows an
impressive dexterity and range.
Soderbergh’s aesthetic fits and enhances the material, but
Unsane’s appearance is sure to turn off some viewers. Shot
entirely on an iPhone 7, it has a gritty, stripped-down look and feel. With
natural lighting and little makeup, at times, it’s almost washed out. Because
it’s so familiar, it also lends an air of voyeurism to the proceedings. There’s
an intimacy that’s not always comfortable, and at times it’s like watching a
video you stumbled across online. Close up shots place the viewer in tight
proximity with Sawyer; the grainy images and vague fish-eye augment the notion
of warped reality and perception; and Soderbergh, working again as his on
cinematographer, sprinkles in long takes that almost feel like found footage
and create a sensation we’re in the room with these characters.
Unsane sticks with the uncertainty of the
is-she-sane-or-crazy thread a touch too long after the truth becomes readily
apparent. It even returns to this well later on. This causes the forward
momentum to slow to a crawl at points. Instead of generating tension, the pace
flags. Not always great for a 98-minute movie.
Unsane will make a solid double feature
with Soderbergh’s 2013 Side Effects. If that’s his scathing,
Hitchcockian takedown of the pharmaceutical industry, it’s easy to view this
film as his throwback exploitation horror take on similar thematic territory.
Unsane proves less effective in that regard, however. We
feel Sawyer’s frustration as she runs into bureaucratic red tape and
regulations at every turn. But the film never quite hits its target, the mental
health business that values profits over people. The overworked, underpaid
staff rings true, but a disinterested head doctor (Gibson Frazier) and
bottom-line administrator (Aimee Mullins) prove obvious, heavy-handed,
distracting tactics.
Unsane works best as a tense, claustrophobic thriller.
Fans of the films Soderbergh apes will be able to predict where the plot’s
going, but it’s a taut, dirty, wild ride nonetheless. While the film nods back
to an earlier time, it also updates the themes and brings the subject into the
#TimesUp and #MeToo era. It doesn’t always land, pieces don’t always work, and
it’s certainly not for everyone, but Unsane offers a nasty little
horror jaunt with smarts, ambitious, and a unique hook.
[Grade: B]
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