Most critics agree on one thing: Claire Foy. Nearly every review, whether it likes the film or not, singles out her jittery, committed performance as the reason to keep watching. Steven Soderbergh’s decision to shoot on an iPhone divides opinion more sharply. Many find the coarse, spidery images right for a story about a woman locked in a psychiatric ward and disbelieved, and several read the film as timely about women whose accounts of harassment are ignored. Others find the look cheap and suspect the director is having more fun than the audience. The reservations cluster in the second half, where plot holes widen and the film slides towards lurid horror; even admirers note a silly climax. The spread is wide. The Telegraph finds the characters do not add up, The Hollywood Reporter calls it pedestrian, and /Film dismisses the script as exploitative, while Deadline calls it smart and bone-chilling and Slant enjoys even its most ridiculous moments.
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Slant Magazine
21 February 2018 · festival review · Steve Macfarlane
85*
Soderbergh's down-and-dirty film uses institutionalization to probe mental health mores in privatization-mad America, with Foy gamely inhabiting the role; even its most ridiculous moments coast on the energy of the director's aesthetic gamesmanship and iPhone experimentation.
Soderbergh's lo-fi iPhone-shot thriller is a raw, lean and abrasively effective take on trauma, stalking and gaslighting, closer in spirit to Get Out than his usual glossy style. Claire Foy gives a blistering, unleashed performance that keeps the film compelling throughout.
The critic admires how Soderbergh and Foy commit to showing the world through the eyes of a traumatized, difficult woman whose reality is toyed with, finding it an unnerving switchback ride that resonates in the #MeToo era despite a cheesy climax.
The critic finds it a satisfying genre trip and delicious satire of modern technology in which the boundary between reality and fantasy is suspect, praising the iPhone-shot thriller's fun ride and Claire Foy's performance.
Claire Foy delivers a standout, multifaceted performance as the jittery protagonist in this experimental psycho-thriller. The film has inventive shots and timely themes but can feel like schlock therapy in the third act, though it is ultimately worth sticking with.
Soderbergh commits to the crazy premise and cheap iPhone imagery in this art-brut not-quite-thriller, drawing parallels between profit-driven healthcare and gaslighting, but the intentional crudity exposes plot holes and the film veers into silliness.
Formal ambition aside, there is nothing out of the ordinary about this iPhone psychodrama; the director appears to be having more fun than the audience. A committed performance from Claire Foy stands out amid a familiar narrative that unravels thematically and mechanically.
Filmed on an iPhone, Unsane is a sharp thriller at least at first, thanks to its spidery cinematography and Foy’s gutsy, live-wire performance with alternating gusts of fury and fragility. It is the slighter of the two films reviewed but gets under your skin.
Claire Foy delivers a jangly, abrasive tour de force in Soderbergh’s ragged iPhone-shot psychological thriller. The propulsive force of her performance allows one to overlook the derivative story and gaping plot chasms for a time, but the film ultimately fails on basic logic.
The review finds the iPhone-shot look coarse rather than velvet and views the story as a farrago, though it admires Soderbergh's experimentation. Claire Foy emerges with credit from the proceedings, with Jay Pharoah's understated performance also noted.
The critic finds the film too demented after a promising start, with poor lighting choices from the iPhone shoot turning it into sub-par thriller territory. Claire Foy's exceptional performance as the trapped protagonist maintains interest despite the flaws.
Claire Foy gives an impressively committed performance as the captive inmate, but she cannot save Soderbergh’s rough, provisional and half-hearted psychothriller. The characters do not add up and the story scarcely seems bothered with half of them.
The critic calls it a dispiritingly pedestrian woman-in-peril shocker with contrived plotting that gives away its game too early and lacks psychological complexity or lurid fun, despite Foy's committed performance and the iPhone gimmick.
The critic highlights the film's cool, nasty thriller qualities as it exploits contemporary social and sexual paranoia while eviscerating bureaucratic language. Foy's spiky, complex performance as the sharp-witted heroine is singled out as a standout.
The critic calls the film a diabolically shrewd and spooky psychological thriller that showcases Claire Foy's furious conviction in the lead role. It is the product of Soderbergh's uniquely democratic filmmaking sensibility, shot entirely on an iPhone.
The film works teasingly at first thanks to a compelling lead performance by Claire Foy, but edges too far into the Gothicly lurid to remain plausible. The iPhone experiment adds artistic heft and the gender politics theme adds urgency, yet it remains a frustratingly tricksy head-wrecker.
The critic calls it an unsettling shocker and ingenious iPhone horror with Claire Foy as its steel core; a woman confined against her will in a sinister mental health ward. Soderbergh brings original twists and well-gauged performances that redeem occasional plot holes.
The critic describes the film as an effectively nasty thriller about a woman involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Soderbergh delivers peril with slyness and jolts, highlighted by Claire Foy's excellent, febrile performance.
The review sees the iPhone-shot psychothriller as a pulpy genre romp conceived as quick-and-dirty, with Claire Foy lending grit to her strung-out businesswoman role. It fuses Soderbergh's experimental and craftsman sides while holding together B-movie jolts with credibility.
The critic finds Unsane a bone-chilling, smart psychological thriller with strong relevance to #MeToo. Claire Foy delivers a sensational performance as the stalked woman whose pleas for help are ignored.
The critic sees the film as a timely indictment of ignoring women's accounts of abuse rather than a standard sanity-questioning thriller. Soderbergh's iPhone cinematography grounds the story, supported by standout performances from Claire Foy and Joshua Leonard.
The critic praises Claire Foy's alive and calculating performance alongside Soderbergh's skillful iPhone-shot technique, which lends the paranoid thriller an intimate, unsettling quality and makes a case for new approaches to filmmaking.
The review calls the film a nerve-wracking, timely thriller that explores how women's voices are ignored amid harassment and institutional indifference. Soderbergh and Foy elevate the iPhone-shot story into a harrowing, intimate reality.
The review commends the innovative iPhone photography and Foy's intense lead performance but finds the story hampered by B-movie contrivances and a slide into gratuitous horror clichés in the final act.
A pulpy, slick and entertaining psych-thriller with a strong central performance from Claire Foy that works well as formulaic genre fare, but feels like a gimmick-driven experiment lacking deeper insight or relevance beyond its iPhone shooting method.
An idiotic and exploitative script wastes the premise and Soderbergh's iPhone experiment, resulting in a repugnant film that fails to meaningfully explore its themes of trauma, madness or the medical industry despite some visual ingenuity.
The review calls it a solid, well-acted thriller with precise yet experimental direction that gives a gritty, dreamlike edge. Foy's portrayal of increasing fear and paranoia is praised, along with effective suspense despite some predictable plot points.
Despite plot credibility issues and loose threads, the film creates effective claustrophobia and terror; Claire Foy delivers a standout edgy, panic-driven performance as the protagonist.
The film delivers an engaging unreliable narrator story with strong performances, particularly from Claire Foy, but is undermined by its iPhone-shot visuals that cheapen the presentation and a disjointed conclusion relying on horror tropes.
Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate
