March 23, 2018 2 min to read

Unsane

If you weren't terrified of Stalkers and Insurance companies before... Unsane will scare you straight.

by Zach Saul

Unsane is terrifying not only because of it’s terrifying villain (Joshua Leonard), but because it doesn’t seem that far from the truth. With each passing day men are getting creepier, corporations are getting smarter about scamming us, and watching the news can put our sanity in jeopardy somedays. Unsane is particularly poignant in an age when truth seems less present in our discourse. Sawyer (Foy) quickly realizes while trapped in the psych ward that her truth doesn’t matter, and to survive her stalker she’d have to outsmart him.

Sawyer’s path to accepting her new reality is what I found most interesting in Unsane, because it requires her to reconfigure her moral “rules” and accept this new paradigm. At the height of her unrest, trapped against her will in a mental institution - Foy’s struggle with the truth hits a crescendo when she learns her stalker works at the hospital and is administering medication. The same stalker she moved cross-country to escape from. Her outbursts about David Strin’s true identity all carry harsh consequences and paint her as more unsane in the eyes of the doctors. You can see Sawyer struggling in many scenes to figure out if holding onto the truth is even worth it. The world Sawyer is trapped in refuses to accept that she was wrongfully admitted, and even a visit from her mother doesn’t release her immediately.

There are also several stylistically unique features of Unsane that deserve mention. Many scenes are shot with a handycam, or handheld cameras - but quite a few are meant to look like they’re being shot from an iPhone. Corny as this may sound, this adds to out feeling that we’re seeing footage we shouldn’t be seeing - and gives normal conversations an added cinematic tension. We’re left wondering if this footage was shot by Sawyer’s stalked David, or my Sawyer herself in an effort to prove her innocence. Even when he’s not including the phone shots - Steven Soderbergh makes an effort to shoot in angles that look like security cameras, or surveillance footage that might be presented during a trial or police interrogation.

The Good: Unsane is smart, unique, and keeps the audience on edge throughout like all effective psych-thrillers do. Claire Foy’s performance is sharp, appropriately unhinged, and deeply anxious, making Sawyer an effective victim. The visual style uses minimalism and the “found footage look” to its advantage. Plus, it gave americans plenty of ammunition to continue despising the insurance industry. Who doesn’t love a greedy corporation getting what they deserve?

The Bad: Although I understand why it was included - there was a very graphic scene at the end of the movie I really wish I hadn’t seen. As part of her escape plan Sawyer asks David to rape another patient in front of her - and then sawyer steals her weapon.