Unsane Gets Under the Membrane

By Katherine Monk

A genre thriller set in a mental hospital, Unsane is very much an experiment in identity — but not just for the central character played by The Crown’s Claire Foy. This low-budget psychological horror also represented a personality shift for director Steven Soderbergh.

The veteran writer-director behind everything from Sex, Lies and Videotape to Erin Brockovich and Magic Mike isn’t satisfied by simple success. He wants to recreate himself with each new project. He was so eager to find a new persona in Unsane, he asked the Directors Guild if he could work under a pseudonym.

“I want to free myself from my own name,” says Soderbergh in the press notes. “And to go make choices that I wouldn’t normally make, treating this as an exercise in developing another directorial personality.”

You can see his desire to see the world in a fresh way in the opening frames. Every shot is framed with a wide lens, courtesy of the iPhone 7, allowing the planes of focus to flatten, lending a surreal edge to every image. The whole film was supposedly shot this way, scoring a win for the democratization of filmmaking, and adding a low-budget intimacy that removes the safety and formality of a big-budget look. But the technology doesn’t register as jarring. The perpetual wide angle does. It’s a technique that was used recently with great success in the little indie shrieker, It Follows, about seeing dead people who pursue the living. David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows wasn’t shot on iPhone, but it does feel like the subtle inspiration behind Unsane because it challenged notions of perception.

“I want to free myself from my own name,” says Soderbergh in the press notes. “And to go make choices that I wouldn’t normally make, treating this as an exercise in developing another directorial personality.”

Sawyer Valentini (Foy) just left Boston to take a new job in Pennsylvania, and already, she’s feeling a little uneasy about her boss. Later, she ends up in a one-night stand gone wrong. She’s addled, so she does the responsible thing and makes an appointment with the company-paid therapist. Little did she realize she signed forms for 24-hour voluntary commitment.

Now stuck in a mental hospital against her will, Sawyer is living through a universal nightmare. She’s desperate to get out and calls the police with her one phone call. Yet, ranting about a conspiracy and kidnapping doesn’t help her cause. Suddenly, we can see Sawyer as others may see her. Is she unstable? Or is there something truly unscrupulous going on at Highland Creek Behavioural Centre? Could the hospital be running an insurance scam to cash in on unsuspecting clients looking for psychological reassurance?

We can’t be sure, but things only get murkier when she’s convinced one of the orderlies is a stalker — the same stalker who forced her to move from Boston to the Keystone State. The doctors and nurses think George (Josh Leonard) is a great guy who takes on extra shifts to help out. Sawyer is certain George is David Strine, a deeply disturbed man who fixated on Sawyer when she volunteered at an old folks’ home.

Leonard finds the perfect mix of creepy and nondescript, but Soderbergh doesn’t give anything away. Thanks to that fisheye lens, he can keep everyone in the same frame without necessarily focusing on one expression or another, and in turn, give us subliminal cues about sympathy. It’s all right there in front of us, under institutional lighting that makes everyone look a little green and otherworldly.

The sheer grittiness of the images marks a stark contrast to the velvety scenery that surrounded Foy in The Crown. Moreover, her private school American accent and frumpy hospital garb ensure the viewer is already experiencing a subconscious fragmentation of celebrity persona.

That’s probably why the movie has thin sinews of comedy running through that bloody thriller flesh: There’s something absurd and out-of-place about the whole experience.

The only thing we can really grab onto is Sawyer, but as her name suggests, she can go back and forth. Fortunately, she’s got some teeth of her own. She’s stronger than she thought, and smarter than we knew. Her tenacity is what keeps us vested. Still, Foy’s performance keeps Sawyer on the edge. We’re always guessing about her stability and Soderbergh’s dark, monotone direction feels like looking into an abandoned well for affirmation.

The lack of a formulaic approach to emotional prompts and responses means the movie never offers a sense of catharsis. Yet, while Unsane is on screen, you’re a captive of Soderbergh, and his many disordered personalities.

@katherinemonk

Main photo: Claire Foy, courtesy of Fingerprint Releasing and Bleeker Street

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