Soderbergh, Foy ring up decent scares in ‘Unsane’
Steven Soderbergh shot “Unsane” on iPhones, evidently in a hurry.
It looks it. He doesn’t exactly try to hide the fact. And I kind of love it for that reason. The story isn’t going to keep you up nights the way a truly good horror movie should, but it’s more than just an interesting experiment. Not a lot more, but more.
Claire Foy, miles away from her role as Queen Elizabeth in “The Crown,” stars as Sawyer Valentini, an ambitious numbers cruncher for a bank whose boss notes her good work while simultaneously hitting on her. We learn from a lunch-break phone call to her mother, Angela (Amy Irving), that Sawyer is new in town, having left in a hurry from Boston.
She goes on a date and calls the shots — you’re going to get what you want, she tells a guy on a date through Tinder, but it’s a one-time thing. She seems strong, in control.
Until all of a sudden she’s not. Sawyer brings the guy home and starts kissing him. Just as suddenly she starts screaming and runs to the bathroom, locking herself in. No explanation, no nothing.
Perhaps not surprisingly, we next see her in a therapist’s office. She’s alone in a big city and never feels safe. Specifics will come later, but clearly she is worried about a stalker. A few questions about whether she has ever considered harming herself seem ordinary, and she’s asked to fill out some routine paperwork.
The next thing she knows, Sawyer is being admitted toa psychiatric ward. Voluntarily, no less — the paperwork wasn’t as boilerplate as it seemed. A 24hour stay will be extended to seven almost without thinking, as part of an insurance deal. Or scam, more like. The more beds filled, the more the hospital can charge insurance. It’s a nightmare for anyone, but for Sawyer, it’s about to get worse.
She bunks in a big room alongside Violet (Juno Temple, who can play crazy in her sleep), whose welcoming gesture is to throw a used tampon at Sawyer.
Sawyer makes a friend with Nate (Jay Pharoah), who is trying to kick an opioid addiction. He tips her off to the insurance angle and recommends that she just lay low, wait out the seven days (that’s how long insurance will approve her stay) and move on.
Hitting a staff member in the face doesn’t help her case.
Then, waiting in line for medicine, she sees him: Her stalker, David Strine (Joshua Leonard), who has followed her to this Pennsylvania facility from Boston, working as part of the nursing staff. Or has he? Administration assures Sawyer that this isn’t Strine, but another man. They have run a background check, etc. Sawyer is not convinced. In flashbacks we learn that in college Sawyer volunteered at a hospice, where she visited Strine’s father. Strine somehow read this as love for him, and after his father died he began showing up everywhere, at the office, breaking into her house, harassing her incessantly with texts. A security expert (a cameo by a Soderbergh favorite) wasn’t much help. She got a restraining order and bolted.
Is her stalker really here? Or is it all in her head?
That’s the question the entire movie hinges on; unfortunately Soderbergh, working from a script by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, answers that question far too soon. That undercuts a lot of the psychological tension and all of the is she/isn’t she dynamic. Whatever the answer, Sawyer is still stuck in this facility, and the film makes some gestures toward shady healthcare practices (along with its very own Nurse Ratched, Nurse Boles, played by Polly McKie) and administrative indifference to anything but profit. And there are some scares of the traditional horror-movie variety.
The iPhone element makes all of that feel a little off-kilter, keeping us even more off-balance than a film like this might. It’s unsettling, which is just the kind of boost a weak story needs. Plus, Foy is terrific, as is Pharoah.
Soderbergh reportedly liked the process — cheaper and faster — enough that he’s going to make his next film on iPhones, too. Sean Baker’s “Tangerine,” coupled with “Unsane,” shows it’s a viable option, as long as the story supports it. Hold your calls.