When I first saw the commercials for Unsane my thoughts ranged from “That looks dumb” to “That looks bad”. Then I saw it was directed by Steven Soderbergh and realized there was probably more going on than the marketing was showing.
As the movie transitions to the hospital and the unusual events begin, the movie’s tagline of “Is she or isn’t she?” starts to hold some promise and potential for an interesting thriller. I was imagining Steven Soderbergh bringing to the psychological thriller a similar layered obfuscated story that he has done with caper films with the audience constantly wondering if the events are real or in her mind.
About halfway through the movie though it becomes very clear that is not the case. It is a very typical and extremely linear thriller that provides very few turns or surprises. There are certainly some social issues being explored in the story, but they deserve a more fleshed out story than what Unsane provides.
From a technical and visual point of view, the use of phone cameras probably did the most to create the feeling of being trapped and creating a general sense of unease about what was happening. Though that also helped contribute to my hope that the audience would have to question the reality of the movie world.
All that said, I really appreciate that Steven Soderbergh continues to experiment with these lower budget movies like he did with Bubble or The Girlfriend Experience.
