- Actors: Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
- Writers: Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer
- Producer: Joseph Malloch
- Disc Format: 4K, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1)
- Subtitles: French, Spanish, English
- Region: Region A/1
- Number of discs: 2
- Rated: R
- Studio: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
- Release Date: June 19, 2018
- Run Time: 99 minutes
Steven
Soderbergh is a director as comfortable making popcorn entertainment as he is
experimenting with the medium, and sometimes he even accomplishes these two
things simultaneously. Having already been one of the innovators of digital
cinema, Soderbergh’s decision to shoot Unsane
entirely on iPhones is not entirely surprising, although it also runs the risk
of being more distraction than asset to the narrative. Even though I respect
Soderbergh’s creativity, the approach in this film feels more like a gimmick,
which is even more disappointing by the fact that he is not even the first to
do this (Academy-Award-nominated Tangerine
was also shot on an iPhone in 2015).
Once the distraction
of the flat iPhone cinematography is excused, Unsane is an enjoyable piece of pulp cinema. This is the kind of
movie that would have been a perfect budget picture in the days of film noir,
or a great 70s psychological grindhouse thriller, and it translates
surprisingly well in the digital age. Without trying to reinvent the wheel,
Soderbergh throws the audience into a situation where sanity can’t be trusted
and anything may be a delusion, so that the audience is forced to question the
same things as our protagonist.
Fresh off of her
success on “The Crown,” Claire Foy stars as Sawyer Valentini, a young woman
living in a new city
after a traumatic experience with a stalker. She is seeking therapeutic
treatment at the Highland
Creek Behavioral
Center in the form of
weekly appointments, but finds herself unwittingly committed after one of these
sessions. Suddenly unable to leave, with the medical professionals insisting
that her sanity is questionable, Sawyer finds herself in a modern medical
nightmare.
As if the
situation weren’t anxiety-inducing enough, Sawyer becomes convinced that one of
the mental institution’s staffers (Joshua Leonard) is actually her stalker,
carrying out a complex plan to get her alone and helpless. This theory only
makes her sound even more crazy, as well as introducing some doubt of her
sanity to the audience. Fortunately, at least one of the other patients Jay
Pharoah) believes Sawyer, and is willing to help her try and find a way out.
Although I tend
not to be a fan of films that play with the question of the protagonist’s
sanity, Unsane does a good job of
keeping that mystery alive. It is a small and simple film in a lot of ways, but
that is also where it excels. Even if Foy is becoming more recognizable, she is
not a major movie star and that helps sell the grittiness of the material. The
flip-side of this can be seen in Matt Damon’s brief cameo, which takes away
from the otherwise low budget feel of the film. I still don’t think this movie
needed to be shot on phones, but it was a wise choice to refrain from casting
big names and recognizable faces once that decision was made.
The 4K release
of Unsane also comes with a Blu-ray
and Digital copy of the film. Both the Blu-ray and the 4K disc have special
features included on the disc along with the movie. Unfortunately, there is
only one extra, and that is a behind-the-scenes featurette which is less than
five-minutes long. In terms of the actual 4K presentation of the film, while it
does enhance the colors and improve the sharpness of the image, I also don’t
think it is at all necessary for this type of film. Even polished, the visuals
of Unsane are only going to look so
good. The film is also available on Blu-ray and DVD.
Entertainment Value:
7/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 7/10
Historical
Significance: 6/10
Special Features: 3/10
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