Film review: Unsane (2018)

By and large, I'm not a big fan of people making up new words. The title of this movie irritates me, but that's beside the point.

We saw this a few nights ago at an Unlimited Screening (other major cinema chains are available and may be better, who knows?) and it was pretty full, I have to say. I'd seen one trailer for it once, but this definitely fell under the ‘it’s included in my monthly direct debit price so I may as well go ’ category. Claire Foy was brilliant - a very credible, very average audience member who gets dragged into something bigger than herself. Jay Pharoah played a very interesting character, one that was in danger of taking over Claire’s, but in the end they did balance each other out very well. In fact everyone in it was well chosen and put their backs into it - no complaints at all on the cast.

The setting was odd but then it was supposed to be - and the cast that rounded out the bulk of the film in the institution was also well played. It impressed me that you have a few different layers going on - some people may not know the whole story, but they’re arseholes about completely different things. If only they knew what was really going on, eh? The use of sound and colours was especially good, and of course there were moments when the atmosphere of the situation was played into.


My only gripe was that the protagonists’ struggles didn’t really grab me. I was rooting for one character, but they were just about holding their own (and also fucking it up along the way, which made them human in my eyes) in the nightmare scenario, so I wasn’t too worried about what would happen to them. There were other, peripheral people I worried about more, and to be honest was upset about when things didn’t go how I wanted for them. However the main premise of the film - is this really happening or is it all in her head? didn’t really come over that way for me. She mentions the concept a few times, but as an audience member I didn’t see it portrayed this way. I think the more interesting question was what are you prepared to do to get yourself out of such a nightmare? That’s when it really got good - when you know a line has been crossed and from here on in it’s a free-for-all. I approved of the ending - the double-ending if you will - and I liked how it wasn’t a typical Hollywood wrap-up.

All in all, not the normal film I run to go see, but definitely worth it once I was in there. Well shot, well played, and well executed. Not the mind-games-cum-headfuck I was told it was, but nonetheless very good.

Verdict: 7/10; well-rounded little movie, but felt a little long at times.

That’s it for now - we have tickets for stop-motion strays, south-eastern edges and even endless battles coming up, but for now, this is all the news that’s fit to print.


Soopytwist.