Unsane

2018's UNSANE is another of director Steven Soderbergh's "stunts", movies that seem to be defined by their unusual technique or willingness to embrace the patently eccentric or ridiculous.  You can scroll back here to read my thoughts on this subject.  It frustrates me that such an obviously talented filmmaker repeatedly feels compelled to merely exploit method or fashion gratuitous remakes and homages instead of just making good movies.  Oh, yes, some are good, and this would include our current selection, shot entirely on an iPhone.

Sean Baker did this for TANGERINE, with highly favorable results.  It looked good.  So does UNSANE, and there's no doubting the skill of either director.  But I really hope this method remains a novelty, something for the masses to use to make their own amateur cinema.  Filmmakers of Baker's (a champion of film) and Soderbergh (one who embraces digital) caliber should stick to the real deal, Panavision and the like.  I am unapologetically pro-celluloid and always will be.  It is what makes film an exciting, even breathtaking medium.  Just my humble little opinion.

UNSANE tells the story of a troubled young woman named Sawyer (Claire Foy) who has moved to a new city to escape a stalker.  She finds she is unable to connect with her co-workers and dates as something will always remind her of the creep back in Boston.  But things get much worse after a visit to a counselor, during which she unknowingly signs paperwork that allows her to be committed to a "Behavioral Center".  The stay is to be for twenty-four hours, but after Sawyer physically assaults another patient in understandable frustration, she's told she's to remain in this dank hellhole for another week.

Joseph Malloch and James Greer's screenplay builds a plot not only involving Sawyer's desperate efforts for escape, but the Center's perpetual insurance fraud.  Soderbergh has exhibited interest in storylines involving medical chicanery before, and here has a fairly interesting parallel thread to Claire's journey, during which there are numerous teases that the woman may indeed not be sane at all.  Is that orderly at the Center really the same guy who made her life so miserable back North? How did he know she would be here, against her will in what resembles an insane asylum?  UNSANE often plays like a '70s psychosis drama, with dashes of IMAGES and THE FIFTH FLOOR.

Soderbergh pilots that iPhone nimbly, far morseo than I bet most schmucks out there who think they could do likewise.  There are a few showy moments, particularly those drug trip freak outs, but otherwise the film plays as a fairly standard drama, usually compelling.  The cast turn in dedicated performances, and Foy gets a few impressive theatrical moments late in the proceedings.  The final scene may seem gratuitous, but I guess it fits.