Sawyer Valentini is a troubled woman who moves away from home to escape a stalker. Sawyer finds she is still triggered by interactions with men as a result of her experiences. She makes an appointment with a counselor at Highland Creek Behavioral Center. At her appointment, she unknowingly signs a release voluntarily committing herself to a 24-hour stay. She calls the police but they do nothing when they see the signed release. After physical altercations with a patient and a staff member, Dr. Hawthorne says she is being kept for seven more days.
Another patient, Nate Hoffman, gives Sawyer an introduction to the place. Highland Creek is running a scheme to milk health insurance claims for profit. They trick people into voluntarily committing themselves as long as the patients’ insurance companies continue to pay; when insurance claims run out, the patient is “cured”. One day, Sawyer sees David Strine, her stalker, working as an orderly under the assumed name George Shaw. She has an outburst and is restrained. Her outbursts result in the repeated use of restraints and sedation.
Nate has a secret cell phone, and Sawyer uses it to call her mother, Angela, who attempts to get her out; Sawyer reveals to her mother for the first time about having been stalked, and explains that David is at the hospital. David intentionally gives Sawyer a megadose of methylphenidate, causing her to become violent and disoriented. That evening, he convinces Angela, who had never seen him before, that he is a hotel employee, and gains entrance to her room. Meanwhile, Sawyer confides in Nate about David, saying he was the son of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease when she worked at a hospice job. After David’s father died, he became obsessed with Sawyer.
David sees Sawyer and Nate together and feels threatened. He knocks Nate unconscious and takes him to the basement, where he tortures him with an ECT device before killing him with an overdose of fentanyl. When they find Nate’s body, the staff conclude that Nate’s overdose was a result of his drug addiction. Sawyer finds a phone under her pillow, with images of Nate badly beaten. She tries to alert the staff, but they put her in solitary confinement.
David visits Sawyer and says he has a secluded mountain cabin he wants to take Sawyer to. Sawyer mocks him for his obvious inexperience with women. David attempts to strangle her, but stops and leaves. David later returns and says Highland Creek administration believes Sawyer is gone, as he has changed information to make it appear that her insurance ran out. Elsewhere, outside the hospital, the body of the real George Shaw is found in the woods.
Unsane is a 2018 American psychological horror film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer. The film stars Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, and Amy Irving, and follows a woman confined to a mental institution after she is pursued by a stalker. The film was shot entirely on the iPhone 7 Plus.
Unsane had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 21, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on March 23, 2018, by Bleecker Street and Soderbergh’s production company Fingerprint Releasing. The film has grossed $7.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $6.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $14.2 million.
In the United States and Canada, Unsane was released alongside Pacific Rim: Uprising, Midnight Sun, Sherlock Gnomes and Paul, Apostle of Christ, and was projected to gross $3 million from 2,023 theaters in its opening weekend.[11] It ended up debuting to $3.7 million, finishing 11th at the box office.[12] In its second weekend the film made $1.4 million, a 61.6% drop.[13]
Unsane (2018)
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Claire Foy, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, Amy Irving, Joshua Leonard, Erin Wilhelmi, Jay Pharoah, Sarah Stiles, Ursula Triplett, Zach Cherry, Polly McKie, Laura Rothschild
Screenplay by: Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer
Production Design by: April Lasky
Cinematography by: Steven Soderbergh
Film Editing by: Steven Soderbergh
Costume Design by: Susan Lyall
Set Decoration by: Kim Fischer
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing behavior, violence, language, and sex references.
Distributed by: Bleecker Street
Release Date: March 23, 2018
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