FILM OF THE WEEK...

UNSANE (15)

Seeing is deceiving in Steven Soderbergh’s hallucinogenic mind trip for a traumatised data analyst, who sees the menacing face of a stalker everywhere she turns.

Scripted by Johan Bernstein and James Greer, Unsane is shot entirely on a smartphone and generates sparks of claustrophobia from the restricted screen framing and occasional blurring of images as characters race around dimly lit corridors.

In his capacity as director and editor, Soderbergh loosens his usually firm grasp on the film’s quickening pulse as boundaries between reality and nightmarish imagination blur with violent consequences. Stockport-born actress Claire Foy convincingly casts off the pomp and ceremony of her award-winning role in The Crown to play Sawyer Valentini, who has moved from Boston to Pennsylvania to escape the barrage of text messages of a mentally unstable admirer called David Strine (Joshua Leonard).

Human interaction is limited to clipped conversations with work colleagues, anonymous hook-ups in bars and reassuring calls to her concerned mother (Amy Irving).

Always looking over her shoulder, Sawyer searches online for support groups for victims of stalking. She is directed to Highland Creek Behavioural Centre.

Unsane sacrifices character development to explore the freedom that smartphone technology grants an Oscar-winning filmmaker.

Once the script commits itself to revealing where the terror lies, we’re left with a freewheeling piece of genre filmmaking that unsettles but never chills.