Film Review: UNSANE (2018)

Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) voluntarily checks into a hospital to see if she can get some help dealing with the fact that she has no friends and just moved away from home in order to get away from a stalker that she’s never told anyone about especially her mother (Amy Irving).  When she is forced to stay at the hospital for a mandatory 72 hours after she reveals to a doctor that she’s had thoughts about killing herself her world will be turned upside down.  This is the premise for UNSANE (2018) a new psychological thriller from director Steven Soderbergh (and written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer).  Sawyer’s quest starts off as a woman who just needs someone else to tell her story to that she can trust but the nurses, hospital staff, and doctors have a different agenda which is to keep as many patients in their beds for as long as possible or until the insurance money runs out.  In addition to having to deal with the politics of her incarceration she also has to deal with the fact that her stalker may have tracked her down and is posing as a nurse at the hospital to get to her.

Soderbergh has crafted a tense thriller that manages to balance the current hospital and insurance politics with the psychological breakdown of the main character to great effect.  Foy carries most of the film by herself as she is not a weak character who will stand to be taken advantage of even in the face of her greatest fear – a relentless stalker that will stop at nothing to possess her.

Filmed entirely with an I-phone the film has a very personal touch and keeps you engaged from beginning to end.  Soderbergh has a lot to say with this film (as he does with most of his great films) and this is definitely one of his films that should not be missed.

Film Review: 13/13/13 (2013)

Using the Mayan calendar it is now the 13^th day of the 13^th month in 2013 and all hell is about to break lose.  This is the dilemma of 13/13/13 (2013) that says that the world is on the brink of destruction as everyone not born on February 29^th will go insane and kill other people or themselves.  With only a handful of people left alive to fend for themselves against a populace of insanity Jack and Candace (Trae Ireland and Erin Coker, respectfully) must escape a hospital filled with people trying to kill them in order for Jack to get back home to his daughter. 

The alliance of these two characters is due to the fact that Jack watched his ex-wife jump out of a hospital window and Candace was forced to kill her nephew who tried to kill her.  They’ll have more insanity to get through before the day is over as the whole world is coming apart at the seams.

Written and directed by James Cullen Bressack the film has an interesting concept once you get past the absurdity of the concept (only people born on Leap Year are unaffected which begs the question of cultures all over the world who go by a different calendar how they would be affected).  The other thing that drags down the film is the fact that for the most part all the action takes place in two locations – the hospital and Jack’s house (where a separate story involving Jack’s three friends driven insane are supposed to be watching his daughter).  Too much time is spent at the hospital and everything at Jack’s house drags down the rest of the film.

Having an apocalypse happen on 13/13/13 was probably a great selling point for the film but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.  For the most part Ireland does a good job with what he’s given but Coker is under developed and becomes a useless sidekick through most of the film.  The production values are actually not that bad but that is one of the few good points in an otherwise highly forgettable film.