4.5/5 Stars

“Unsane” is the next film from Steven Soderbergh (“Logan Lucky”), and in his triumphant return to Hollywood mainstream filmmaking, he continues to show that he is now just going to do whatever he wants. This time, he shot an entire film on an iPhone. The film follows Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy, “The Crown”), a troubled businesswoman who starts a new life and a new job far away from home. When she thinks she sees a man that has been stalking her at her job, she goes to a psychiatric hospital and unwittingly commits herself for a seven-day stay. Now, she must find a way to escape from a place she is convinced she does not belong in. Things proceed from bad to worse when she begins seeing her stalker (Joshua Leonard, “The Blair Witch Project”) as a hospital worker, prompting the audience to wonder whether she really is crazy.

Soderbergh took a break from directing mainstream movies for the past couple years, but made his comeback with last year’s “Logan Lucky,” a film that turned out to be very different than audiences were expecting, but that is OK because it does not affect Soderbergh. He is simply at a point in his career where he can make what he wants with whatever he wants and does not have to worry about box office or audience reception to determine whether he can continue to make movies. That is an admirable quality, especially because it is a position that every director in Hollywood wishes they were in.

The reason that is brought up is because with this movie, Soderbergh is able to create one of the best thrillers of the decade from a fairly generic premise: person who the audience is not sure whether they are actually crazy ends up in an insane asylum and has to escape. Every time it looks as though the film is going to go in one direction, it flips and inverts itself to provide something the audience completely does not see coming, and it is handled brilliantly by somebody who has shown that their prowess behind the camera has not been hampered.

Performances are, for the most part, pretty great all around, with the standout being Foy. She successfully manages to take what looks to be a fairly generic character and turn her into an incredibly strong and multidimensional heroine who is never willing to let the circumstances of her situation dissuade her. Above all else, the interesting thing about her character is that when one really thinks about it, the character of Sawyer is not a good person. The only reason why the audience cares about her struggle is because she is the center focus. The film is also constantly reminding us that while she might be crazy, she is definitely not a kind person at all.

There are problems with the movie and the story, and a lot of the criticisms are going to harangue the film for the similarities it has to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but the pacing, technical prowess, twists and turns and performances are definitely enough to make one forget about the similarities. And besides Foy, a lot of the supporting cast is pretty fantastic, with the standout being Jay Pharoah (“Saturday Night Live”), who could have easily been just the guy who explains everything to her. Instead, he gives one of the most layered and relatable performances ever seen from an “SNL” cast member. Amy Irving, Steven Spielberg’s ex-wife, also does fantastically with her limited screen time as Sawyer’s mother. Leonard as her stalker, while not giving a fully developed performance, is still creepy in all the best ways. If there were one problem with the movie, it would be Juno Temple (“The Most Hated Woman in America”), whose characterization of a mental patient falls deep into cartoon territory, but the saving grace is that the film basically treats her the way the audiences feel about her performance, which is a bit of a relief.

While “Logan Lucky” may not have been the return people were expecting from Soderbergh, this movie easily is. A great thriller, some new filmmaking techniques and star making performance all help to make “Unsane” much more than a typical theater experience.

Image from Bleecker Street via YouTube.com