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Unsane movie review: is she or isn?t she?

Director Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement in 2013, stating that he was frustrated with Hollywood, its focus on huge, (supposedly) safe blockbusters, and the subsequent squeezing out of smaller, more challenging films. He also said at the time that he felt that ?movies don?t matter anymore? as cultural touchstones. He unretired last year to give us the middling Logan Lucky, a blah imitation of his own Ocean?s Eleven; if that movie was intended to make us nostalgic for those smaller films that the studios aren?t interested in backing anymore, it failed. But Soderbergh may have found his groove again ? or, rather, a new groove for a new movie environment ? with the unusually unsettling psychological thriller Unsane.

As a piece of craft, Unsane is a smack in the face to what Hollywood has become in recent years, bloated with megabudget action fantasies full of impossible monsters and superheroes that demand armies of CGI grunts to create. (I often like those movies, but a diet of nothing but them gets tedious.) Using off-the-shelf iPhones, apps, lenses, and drones, Soderbergh ? who served as his own cinematographer, as he often does ? shot the film mostly in one location, with a small cast and almost impossibly tiny crew. They prepared not so much in secret as under the radar, because that?s easy to do ? it?s almost inevitable ? with such a small production footprint. Unsane?s budget? A measly $1.2 million? which is the precise same dollar amount as Soderbergh?s very first film, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, almost 30 years ago. And that was considered low-budget then.

Not that it?s like Soderbergh whipped his cellphone out of his pocket and made a movie off the cuff. If you didn?t know Unsane wasn?t shot in a more traditional manner, you?d never guess it from looking at what ended up on the big screen. The movie does have a rough, edgy energy, one that is perfect for its story, but that is, I suspect, at least as much a result of the freedom that comes with not having a big corporation breathing down your neck as what kind of gear was used. (The quick-and-dirty filmmaking extends to the script, by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer [as a team: The Spy Next Door], which was written in 10 days, and serves as another smack to the often overly massaged, endlessly reworked studio scripts that end up having to credit half a dozen writers, or more.) Still, the dull colors and that certain video flatness to the photography only underscore the plight of office worker Sawyer Valentini (an amazing Claire Foy: Breathe, Rosewater), who goes for a brief consultation with a therapist and ends up accidentally signing a form submitting herself ?voluntarily? to a 24-hour commitment at a mental hospital. (Always read what you?re signing! Though how many of us really do?) Her panic, once she realizes what has happened, and her inability to get anyone in charge to listen to her, to see that this is all a terrible mistake, is the stuff of bureaucracy-gone-mad, the medicalization of perfectly healthy anxieties and distresses, and the deficits of mental health care we?ve seen before: Unsane! It?s Brazil meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo?s Nest!

Unsane is a horror story, too, of America? Unsane (2018) Movie Review for-profit health-care environment, with an angle on that that is nightmarish in a way I haven?t seen onscreen before. But if Soderbergh was aiming for some cultural-touchstone power, he couldn?t have done better than with the film?s terrific ? in all senses of the word ? feminist twist on the familiar tropes of its overlapping genres. It?s not just that the story is framed from a woman?s perspective: it?s that the baggage and the experience that Sawyer brings with her amps up the dread and the dismay in a way that extends its power and its relevance way beyond the edges of this pulpy little thriller. Sawyer needed to talk to a therapist, you see, because she is on the run from a stalker, having moved hundreds of miles from Boston to Philadelphia to escape him, and she?s having trouble coping with the stress of that. ?I?m alone in a strange city,? she tells the therapist, ?and I never feel safe.? Her stalker? Unsane: I Think I?m Paranoid seems to pop up everywhere; like, suddenly, on the random stranger she brings home for a one-night stand. And then ? as her 24 hours in the psych ward gets extended to a week ? she suddenly starts seeing his face on one of the nurses (Joshua Leonard: The Town That Dreaded Sundown, If I Stay).

Is it really him? Everyone in the hospital denies that he?s anyone but a carefully vetted psychiatric nurse, and definitely not her stalker. Are they lying, and if so, why would they do that? Is this place making her crazy? She wonders as much out loud to another patient on the ward, Nate Hoffman (Jay Pharoah: Sing, Top Five), whom she has befriended; he seems pretty sane, but he has some theories about this hospital that, honestly, sound a bit too pathologically paranoid to be true, so maybe they?re both a little mad? It all becomes a horrifying metaphor for how women are not believed, how we are derided as lunatic and hysterical, how we gaslight ourselves into doubting the evidence of our own experience when we are subjected to harassment and abuse by men, or even just in the whole big wide world where entrenched sexism dictates the tenor of so much of how we are treated. (The first scene of the film features Sawyer?s new boss creeping on her. Or maybe not? Maybe his was an honest and strictly work-related invitation that they go to a conference together and stay at a fancy hotel? argh)

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How It Ends Review

For better or worse, AMC?s zombie-smashing megahit The Walking Dead�has long become the most popular depiction of the post-apocalypse. What comes after the end of everything is a popular topic in the collective unconscious these days (can?t imagine why), and The Walking Dead�is the entertainment entity that has had the longest time to explore it.

And that?s always been the problem with The Walking Dead, it loves to explore the emotional, social, and political ramifications of society?s collapse. And my God it has tons of time to do so. The show is so in love with what it means to survive the unsurviveable that entire seasons of the show pass with thousands of bullets fired, dozens of philosophical conversations had, and absolutely nothing learned.

At first glance, Netflix?s apocalyptic action drama, How It Ends,�seems like a response to the overly ponderous zombie-filled rumination on The Nature of Man? and What It All Means�. The apocalypse hits fast-forward in How It Ends. An unknown cataclysm on the West Coast turns off the lights and shuts down the internet and cell signals worldwide in about 15 minutes. Five minutes later the entire world is Mad Max: Fury Road�with Cadillacs on I-90 instead of war rigs on an African desert path.

Hilariously implausible? Yes. A death sentence for the movie? Not necessarily. What is a death sentence, however, is how punishingly, infuriatingly boring the apocalypse turns out to be. Give How It Ends�credit for not wasting our time and getting to the end of the world within a quarter-hour. Give it absolutely no credit for then somehow making the end of the world an absolute 120-minute chore to slog through.

Theo James stars as Will, a young man living in Seattle with his beautiful and perfect wife Sam (Kat Graham). We don?t know precisely what Will does for work, but he calls it ?the firm? so undoubtedly he?s very important and cool. Will has business back in Chicago so after a work meeting, he intends to pay a visit to Sam?s father, Tom (Forest Whitaker) and mother Paula (Nicole Ari Parker) with the intent of asking Tom for his daughter?s hand in marriage. Tom is a doting father, former military man, and monstrous prick. He hates Will for having the audacity to unconditionally love his daughter for years, not making enough money (but the firm!), and moving to Seattle. It?s a rough dinner for Will and the following morning is even rougher because uh?the apocalypse suddenly happens.

For a film called How It Ends, How It Ends�is completely unconcerned with the how of anything. Bad things just kind of start to happen and Tom, type-A butthead that he is, immediately knows that he must make the 2,000-mile drive to Seattle to rescue his Sam. http://tinyurl.com/y88bjbv3 decides to tag along because there?s paternal catharsis out in them there hills.

The majority of How It Ends�takes place on Interstate 90, which despite being closed by the federal government for safety reasons, it still seems to be populated by thousands of generic redneck villainy, who look like they?ve been living off the land for 40 years. Will and Tom spend a lot of time alone in Tom?s Caddy, speeding along a mostly barren landscape and needlessly challenging each other?s manhood.

http://bit.ly/2PkrNcl ?s hard to criticize James and Whitaker?s performances because there is really nothing to perform. Will and Tom are empty archetypes and not even interesting ones at that. Tom is the typical aging badass whose military training and fierce love of family will help him overcome any adversary. Just once, I?d like to see a post-apocalyptic drama in which the most powerful and useful character is a tiny nerd with a bad thyroid and PhD in modernist avant-garde literature of the 20th century.

Will alternates between helpless and killing machine as the plot dictates. James is charismatic enough but has the wrong physicality for the role. He?s far more imposing than any of the threats the two come across, but by plot necessity can?t quite seem to accomplish anything correctly until the third act when he suddenly must.

Also the scrunched timeframe and accelerated apocalypse goes from a strength to a weakness pretty quickly when it becomes clear just how accelerated the timeline is. The movie offers helpful ?Day 2, Day 3, etc.? subtitles throughout the proceedings and each one is funnier than the last. Viewers are treated to events that wouldn?t appear out of place on The Walking Dead?s�100th episode only to then be greeted by the star text ?Day 3.? It?s like that Will Ferrell era Saturday Night Live skit where the teleprompter goes out and society collapses.

Also for men who are singularly focused on finding the woman they love, Will and Tom sure make a lot of pit stops. They stop for gas and take on a barely willing mechanic, Ricki (Grace Dove). They stop at Will?s friends house and load up on what seems to be like nine years of supplies then stop again not five minutes later for more. Will and Tom?s only consistent characteristic, and only consistent motivation, is that they are in an action movie. Any outside emotion, motivation, or stimulus that would interfere with that is ignored. Even when they reach a level of understanding, it?s because they are in an action movie and required to do so, not because the two men have found any meaningful middle ground.

Visually, How It Ends�mostly works. Director David M. Rosenthal (of the upcoming Jacob?s Ladder�remake) knows that America on fire should be bitterly pretty. The landscapes across northern I-90 blend together but Tom and Will?s little Cadillac is placed well within them. The few action set pieces are clear but clich� and under characterization from those involved robs them from any poignancy or power.