Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane is stressful, unsettling and brilliant
If anyone was going to be the first person to get a major movie release shot entirely on an iPhone (7plus, 256gb using the app FilmicPro and using a wheelchair as a dolly since you ask) it was going to be Steven Soderbergh.
The man who took eight days to write Sex, Lies & Videotape turning it into a $100million smash before snapping up an Oscar for the incredible Traffic AND then making the smartest heist movie in a generation (Ocean’s Eleven) brings you Unsane - a psychological thriller for the #metoo generation - and foe of every autocorrect on the planet.
The technique is surprisingly good and quickly irrelevant. You barely notice the subtle difference in shots.
Soderbergh has been relatively quiet on how much time was spent in the edit suite polishing it up, but hell - if our next Spielberg comes as a result of a contract with Vodafone - I’m down with that.
That aside, ‘Unsane’ has to stand on its merits - of which there are many.
Claire Foy takes about as much of a departure as is possible from playing Elizabeth II in ‘The Crown’.
Soderbergh spotted her accepting an award and offered her the role of mouthy banker Sawyer Valentini - a victim of stalking who after a meltdown during a Tinder date, decides upon counselling.
Whilst attending her initial session at the local outpatients centre of a mental hospital, an off-the-cuff remark about self-harm garners the attention of an insurance-hungry administration and a series of events quickly sees her committed “for her own safety”.
This is no Cuckoo’s Nest however, as her stalker appears to have her completely cornered. With no-one to believe her, let alone help Unsane descends into a paranoid, schizophrenic nightmare.
We are constantly asked, as the viewer, to decide who we believe. Is Sawyer right to be so paranoid, or is she simply in the best place for someone so ill?
Whichever you decide (and you’ll probably veer between the two a few times), it’s an incredibly stressful watch and articulates the daily fear and scepticism many women have to endure in a way I’d never seen before, or at the very least not fully appreciated.
Standout supporting roles come from Jay Pharaoh and Juno Temple as fellow inmates and there is a surprising and utterly excellent deadpan cameo from Matt Damon as a pretty terrifying Security Advisor, perfectly encapsulating the disparity between men and women’s needs for safety.
MOST READ IN FILM
Unsane
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Claire Foy, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins
Release Date: 23/03/2018
(15)
Rating: ★★★★☆