Good story, Not enough for a whole film

From my favorite movies..

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

What starts out well gets very muddled. Many plot holes. This is what happens when you resort to a gimmick like shooting a feature on an iPhone just for the sake of hype. The last 30 minutes were painful and amateurish.

A woman is involuntarily sent to a hostile psychiatric ward after admitting suicidal thoughts over a lengthy stalking ordeal, only to (maybe?) see him in the hospital.The unique selling point of Unsane, widely known by those who've at least heard of it, is that it was entirely shot on an iPhone. Directed by Steven Soderbergh (of Erin Brockovich, Ocean's 11/ 12 & 13, Magic Mike and Logan Lucky fame), Unsane was brought to theatres for a paltry $1.2m budget and makes an impact with every buck.It follows the trials of an innocent women (played brilliantly by Claire Foy, the best thing in a great film) held against her will in a psychological ward after admitting suicidal thoughts following a prolonged stalking incident, only to find that her creepy admirer may (or may not) have got himself a job in the hospital to be with her. Her ordeal escalates as she tries to convince the nurses and senior hospital staff that she's not safe only to be constantly ignored or disproven with bureaucracy and paperwork. It's infuriating and the most stressed I've been in a cinema in years, but it's brilliant.The slow, haunting and unnerving music is reminiscent of The Shining, and the setting - a series of small clinical rooms along a series of long, narrow and repetitive corridors - stifles and disorientates the audience. Meanwhile, the camera's tight aspect ratio and muted colour scheme enhances the claustrophobia. All of this, alongside the frustrating bonds of signatures and consent forms (as well as her often-applied physical manacles) lays the building blocks of a tense thriller which kind of loses its way in the final 15 minutes before bringing it back for a satisfying ending.It speaks greatly and powerfully to the abuse of authority and trust among strangers, the unaccountability of big business and the real-life dangers of gaslighting - an underhanded form of mental abuse in which someone is psychologically manipulated into doubting their own beliefs, memory or sanity. If, like me, you get triggered by stories of false imprisonment, then by watching Unsane you're in real danger of giving yourself an aneurism ... but you'll still get a thrill out of it all the same.Best Quote: "Your life slips away from you, you know? Changing your phone number and your email becomes normal. Taking out a restraining order, normal. Relocating to another city, normal."

The low-budget-like style here is just so cool and unique: there's the discomforting and claustrophobic wide-angle lens, the intense close-ups and other interesting angles, the deliberate and concise editing, the unnerving original score, the perfect A-lister cameo, the freeze-frame under rapid end credits. The story is a little wonkily constructed at points (see the puzzlingly early mystery reveal) but is always creepy and thrilling, carried by Foy's strong central performance.

I first saw a trailer for this movie on an Instagram ad (cue the millennial jokes) and decided to rent it from my friendly neighborhood Redbox the next day. I looked up the cast before I watched it, and thought it to be an interesting vehicle, seeing Jay Pharoah do a 180 from his usual SNL shtick. I also thought that the plot, at least what I could gather from the trailer, was somewhat creative in the modern thriller/horror era, with regards to the fact that it wasn't a sequel, prequel, or reboot of any variety.I thoroughly enjoyed the acting throughout, from Claire Foy and Joshua Leonard alike. I thought that their dynamic worked very well for a low-budget indie movie of this variety. I also enjoyed the supporting cast (including Pharoah) which added another layer of nuance to the characters and their development throughout the film. However, I do have one gripe. The film was slightly predictable, and while Foy does not end up in a mental whirlwind over whether or not her stalker was legitimate to begin with, it still falls prey to the provocative thriller type with an ending in the middle of the woods, and a quasi-twist to finish it out. Regardless, I enjoyed this movie and found it to be worthy of my rental. Even though the ending wasn't quite the most original I've seen, it was quite good for a small budget indie, and more than watchable. 7/10.