Released March 23, “Unsane” is a horror thriller that pretends it has a meaningful message but delivers only toxicity.
The film follows Sawyer Valentini, played by Claire Foy, and her voyage as she moves from Boston to California to escape an obsessed stalker, played by Joshua Leonard.
Running from the traumatic experience, Sawyer seeks therapy for stalking victims, but she gets tricked into being institutionalized after revealing she has had suicidal thoughts in the past. Things only continue to spiral out of control for Sawyer as she discovers that her stalker is working at the institution – or is it all in her head?
Any film that uses mental illness as a primary source of conflict is toeing a thin line between building a compelling story line and propagating dangerous and outdated views; “Unsane” flat out sprints past that line.
With the primary source of conflict coming from Sawyer’s institutionalization and the complete lack of respect that the mental health professionals hold for her, “Unsane” spews a message of distrust into an already gray area of American society.
According to Mental Health America, 41 percent of American adults who are suffering from mental illness do not seek treatment, and if all Americans subscribed to the toxic view of mental health that “Unsane” promotes, that percentage would be significantly lower.
One of the most troubling aspects of “Unsane” is its aggressive use of stereotyping in its roles of patients and hospital workers. Every patient with whom Sawyer interacts fits a stereotype that is familiar in the American lexicon; there are plenty of drugged-out zombie-like characters who stumble through the hospital, the patient who holds no regard for sanitation and the comforts of others and, of course, there are plenty of countless snickering bystanders who avoid eye contact.
Meanwhile, the hospital workers are cruel and unyielding, taking every opportunity to undermine Sawyer and the other patients. The only character Sawyer relates to is a man named Nate, played by Jay Pharoah, who is only relatable because he is deemed unworthy of institutionalization as well.
The major takeaway of these directing calls is obvious and disappointing: Those who are patients in mental institutions are unrelatable, and those who work in them are untrustworthy. This danger present in this message is obvious.
Moving past casting and message, one of the most interesting aspects of “Unsane” is its method of filming, which was accomplished using only iPhone cameras. The use of such low-tech cameras aided in the film making it through post-production with a budget of only $1.5 million, but such a low budget does not come without a slew of problems: color pallets that feel amateur, excessive contrast in close ups and a generally fuzzy-looking final product.
It is commendable that director Steven Soderbergh is trying to push a message that a high budget is not needed to make a film, but as it turns out, it may be needed to make one that is pleasant to look at.
One thing “Unsane” does well is use uncertainty throughout the film. For the first half of “Unsane,” it is impossible to discern whether the events happening are real or all in Sawyer’s head. This, combined with Joshua Leonard’s fantastic performance as a deranged stalker, comes together to make a genuinely creepy film, but even this compliment must have a negative side.
Despite the movie’s creepy moments, it lacks decent pacing to make these scary scenes flow together. Instead of rolling through the film constantly unnerved, the viewer has to power through entire sections of the film where nothing of substance happens to get to a decent scare. The end result is a 98-minute movie that feels as if it is more than two hours long.
“Unsane” is a film that had promise to be a light of hope in a genre that frequently stigmatizes mental health and relies on huge budgets to complete films, but in actuality, it is nothing of the sort. Considering there are 14 movies other than “Unsane” showing in the Oxford area, odds are high that you can get a better value for your movie ticket.
