Unsane

2018 psychological thriller

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A woman is committed to a mental health facility against her will and is then terrorized by a figure from her past. Or is she?

The stupid title of this movie should have been warning enough. Unsane? That's not even a word.

After Logan Lucky and this, it's clear that Steven Soderbergh should have stayed retired. I was semi-excited for this one because Soderbergh was experimenting again and making a genre film. Maybe, I thought, Soderbergh's ideas are forcing him out of retirement. Sadly, anybody at all could have made this movie, and there are loads of other directors (Sean Baker, for instance) who could have done a much better job. This fails to thrill, the characters are as flat as you'll ever see in a psychological thriller or horror movie or whatever you want to call this, and the iPhone filming style utilized much more effectively in Tangerine adds nothing to the story or the experience.

There were lots of snickers from the crowd during this one. There might be some moments that you could call darkly comic, but for the most part, this plays out like a straight thriller. The main problem is that it just doesn't thrill. It's predictable and really dull, and I never really connected with the character or her plight. I don't think that's Claire Foy's fault although I did think her performance as our troubled and fairly unlikable protagonist was wildly uneven. It might have been partially Joshua Leonard's fault. I don't want to say much about who he plays or what his character's role in this whole thing is because it would spoil the whole thing, but there are a lot of times when the combination of his bad acting and the bad words he's given to say completely wrecked the tone that Soderbergh needed to establish. The other actors and actresses are capable although there are times when the characters almost seem to be asking, "What am I doing here again? Why does this character exist?" They're background, but they don't do much more than the gray walls to bring this setting to life.

The final 20 minutes or so reminded me of late-70's or early-80's movies, and that very well could have been what Soderbergh was going for. The blend of those older psychological thriller tones with this newfangled iPhone filming technique could have been fascinating, but neither side of that equation seems fully realized. I thought the iPhone thing could have given the filmmaker an opportunity to throw in some guerrilla-filmmaking moments or give this a more intrusive quality, but it doesn't do either of those. I also suspected Soderbergh wanted to say something about the effects of smartphones on our lives, but it doesn't seem like there's anything there either. There are some moments when the style is cable of making the audience feel like voyeurs, but for the most part, it just makes the whole thing seem very cheaply made. That's fine--I like a little grit in my movies. But other than one chaotic moment with some cool-looking double-exposure effects, I didn't feel like the style of this added anything at all. Weird camera angles, oppressive close-ups, and shots through foliage really served no purpose. One wonders if Soderbergh's justification for filming this with phones would be something as shallow as "Well, I wanted to prove that I could seem like an indie filmmaker or even a complete amateur even though I'm a well-known director who has worked with Brad Pitt."

I haven't even mentioned anything about the story. It really makes no sense, but I can't really say much about that without spoiling things. Suffice it to say that eye-rolling moments abound, especially during an ending that I think was supposed to be some kind of twist.