Unsane

Claire Foy

Steven Soderbergh's Unsane is another trip down the shock corridors and into the snake pits of the American mental health system. A beleaguered young woman, a solid Claire Foy, seeks therapeutic help and ends up with a week long involuntary stay at a mental health facility. The for profit nature of the facility is stressed; capitalist critiques have long been a salient feature of Soderbergh's work, think of Erin Brockovich, Che and Magic Mike. The film's central plot twist concerns whether we are to believe the heroine's paranoid fears. The monotony of the film's tone and palette renders the impact of the reveal moot. Whether she is being set up by a stalker or is clinically paranoid, our heroine faces a hostile and alien environment which she must overcome with resilient ingenuity.

The stacked deck of the plot, one full of holes, is not what doomed Unsane for me. Rather, Soderbergh's cerebral style, here in low budget renegade mode, clashes with the potboiler script. A more lurid and primitive style, more like Fuller or Ferrara, would have been more appropriate and exciting. Instead, we get a listless art film that must have looked better on the drawing board: much like Kafka, The Good German, The Underneath, Full Frontal and even Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Soderbergh's best work needs a little charm and warmth at the center to balance his pessimism: a Clooney, Pitt or even Channing Tatum. Foy is suitably twitchy, but her plight grows tiresome. The acting, a Soderbergh forte, is generally good with Juno Temple, Amy Irving, and Jay Pharoah the standouts. Ultimately, a fairly minor film from a major American director. (8/6/18)