Review of Unsane (2018) by Manicure — 22 Nov 2020

Are an iPhone and a bunch of decent actors enough to make a good film? If you got a good writer, maybe.

Sawyer is a woman traumatized by her past experiences with a stalker. She consults with a psychiatrist, carelessly signs some paperwork, and ends up being trapped in a mental asylum against her will. During her stay, she finds out that the institution is detaining patients with false diagnoses to milk their medical insurance. On top of that, her stalker has infiltrated the hospital as part of the staff. Or is she simply hallucinating?

"Unsane" could be considered as Steven Soderbergh's "just as a hobby" movie, as everything about it feels so rough and effortless. Soderberg does a pretty good job at filming and editing everything himself, but the writing just doesn't work. The film has political tones as it tries to make a critique of the American healthcare system, but is essentially an uninventive and naive Hitchcock style thriller. The plot has good premises, but it develops so poorly that it almost felt improvised, as if it was written on the go.

Everything was shot on an iPhone, with a lot of low angle shots and grainy close-ups that look unpleasant but fit the atmosphere of the asylum. This kind of low-budget films tend to go for Mockumentary-like cinematography to give a sense of reality. However, Soderberg's camera work and direction are as professional and polished as usual, giving the film a B movie, reality show kind of feel. As he had a 1.5 million budget, he could have used Matt Damon's and the writers' money to film it on regular cameras. The use of iPhones does not give the film extra value if not for promotion.