Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Unsane, is a psychological thriller about a woman who is incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital even though she claims to be perfectly sane. But is she? It was filmed fast, on an iPhone 7, and some aspects are worryingly thoughtless — its treatment of mental-health patients, for example, is remarkably Unsensitive. And it does descend into a plainly ridiculous, sub-par farce. But it is also, in parts, deliciously schlocky and it stars the wonderful Claire Foy, whom one hopes was paid decently. So shocking that she earned less than Matt Smith for The Crown, but as a positive person who likes to look on the bright side might I suggest that we celebrate the fact men are still doing so well? And throw a party or something?
Here, Foy plays the unlikely named Sawyer Valentini, who has relocated from Boston to Pennsylvania to escape David Strine (Joshua Leonard), the man who has been stalking her for two years and has made her life hell. She has a new job in a bank where the boss instantly comes on to her — Soderbergh is clearly down with the women, sometimes clumsily so — and she’s in a state. She’s lonely, but suffers panic attacks, which makes dating impossible. So she seeks therapy, and undergoes a session with a seemingly sympathetic counsellor at the Highland Creek Behavioural Centre. She confesses that, yes, she’s had suicidal thoughts, but hasn’t everyone at some time or another?
She signs some papers, which she thinks are simply committing her to further therapy sessions, but then discovers she’s admitted herself as an inpatient. She is put on a locked mixed ward where the woman (Juno Temple) in the next bed threatens her with a dangerously sharpened spoon.
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