Soderbergh Marathon: Part 18

Intro

Unsane (2018)

Steven Soderbergh must get bored directing.  That's the only explanation for why he continuously makes experimental movies.  But they're not experimental movies in content.  No his type of experiment is more "What if I filmed a movie with real people and not actors?" and "What if I shot the entire movie on iPhone 7?"

Unsane is the first of two movies filmed entirely on an iPhone, and it's entirely possible he plans to make more movies this way.  Why?  I don't know.  Because he can is the best I can come up with.  The artistic reasons to do so seem... flimsy.  It's possible it's some sort of message to the general public that they too can make movies.

Which if that's his message, I don't think his message is effective.  Unsane is an ugly, ugly movie, and it's ugly for a reason, but if anyone else is making a movie this ugly, they won't get away with it.  They just won't.  He proves that he can make a visually more appealing movie on an iPhone in the next movie I'll cover, but for this one, he makes it visually unappealing.

Unsane is about a woman who we quickly find out left her hometown to escape a stalker, a point you can probably gather from the opening shots, which are both shot at a distant and coming on an iPhone, which is pretty effective to quickly convey her state of mind at the time.

Anyway, through a few plot things that you need to hand wave away because the coincidences are astronomical, she finds herself unwillingly in a mental hospital.  This was the most effective and uncomfortable part of the movie.  She is trapper in there because she made an offhand comment that got her locked up, but shouldn't have, and she keeps making things worse for herself.

That's the other thing.  The main character is not remotely likable.  Claire Foy plays her as paranoid and rude and better than everyone in the mental hospital.  Which is part of the reason she keeps making things worse.  It does make it somewhat hard to care about her when you would simply not like her in real life.

She's told the ropes by an undercover journalist, played by Jay Pharoah.  Well, we think he's an undercover journalist.  This is a mental hospital after all.  Pharoah brings a much needed lightness and charm to her everyday life and is a strong part of the movie.

The movie takes a turn, an unbelievable turn - like I said the astronomical coincidences of the movie - and I wouldn't exactly say it's the worse for it, but it is much less interesting in the second half.  No less uncomfortable though.  The ugliness, the awkward shots are still present.

All in all, an interesting experiment to be sure.  And it's no doubt effective at what it's trying to do through using the iPhone, but I do wish the iPhone was used more sparingly and not during the entire movie.  Plus, the movie goes from frighteningly realistic to absurd by the end.  So I can't really give this my recommendation.  But I do appreciate that all of Soderbergh's experiments are for a reason and the story here certainly justifies the reason, despite my complaints.

2/4 stars