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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Unsane’ could have used a better script

Dan Webster

If you haven't yet seen "Unsane," or even if you have, you might be interested in reading the review of the film that I wrote for Spokane Public Radio:

We’re all familiar with the kind of film that Steven Soderbergh has given us with “Unsane,” which follows the struggles of a woman committed to a mental institution. As far back as 1948, Olivia de Havilland starred in a similarly themed film, Anatole Litvak’s “The Snake Pit.”

But unlike Litvak’s effort, which was a serious attempt to look at the brutal conditions prevalent in such a hospital, Soderbergh follows a story that owes more to the “Hostels” and “Saws” of the world.

Not that “Unsane” starts out that way. After a mysterious beginning, a narrated, visually-augmented mediation on love, obsession and the color blue, Soderbergh’s film immerses us in the world of Sawyer Valentini, an intense, flinty office worker who is apparently efficient enough to warrant side-eye glances from her coworkers and pretty enough to attract the unwanted attentions of her boss.

Soon we see Sawyer in a bar, picking up stray man, then – just before the obligatory act of passion – rejecting him in a way that gives us a pretty good indication that something is rotten in the state of Sawyer’s inner Denmark. A fast that she then shares with a psychologist, who then – about as fast as you can say Screenwriting 101 – convinces Sawyer to sign papers that, unknowing to her, are voluntary consent forms.

Thus begins the scariest portion of “Unsane,” the part where someone we have come to know at least a little bit, and therefore have begun to care for – at least a little bit – finds herself the captive of a system where everything she says or does is viewed with suspicion. Where she is forced to commune with people who very clearly are NOT mentally stable.

And where any attempt she makes to correct the situation is answered with psycho-babble, with force or with a dose of knock-out drops – usually injected by needle.

That, though, is the point at which “Unsane” goes off the rails. We ultimately learn that Sawyer’s strange intensity was caused – or at least intensified – by an experience almost as chilling as her unwanted confinement. Seems she was stalked by an obsessive would-be suitor. And worse, Sawyer insists that this suitor, whom she has been desperately trying to avoid, is one of the workers in the very hospital to which she is confined.

So instead of a scintillating psychological study, “Unsane” – which was written by the journeyman writing team of Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, authors of “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector” – becomes a tawdry, all-too-predictable woman-in-peril story. One whose villain is able to cover a trail of crimes so well that no one – especially not the conniving insurance scammer – is ever the wiser. Except for Sawyer.

Which is a disappointment because Claire Foy, best known for playing Queen Elizabeth II in the HBO series “The Crown,” pulls off an impressive performance as our protagonist. And Soderbergh, who shot the film with a specially equipped iPhone, has more than enough expertise to make even the most pedestrian scene feel creepy to the max.

It’s just too bad he didn’t opt for a better screenplay.