Unsane (2018)

Sawyer Valentini was stalked by a man named David in her hometown. To escape, she uprooted her whole life and moved to a city where she doesn't know anyone. She excels at her job, but isolates herself and avoids her coworkers. Sawyer's release is therapy where she feels free to vent about her woes. She's honest about some past suicidal thoughts and signs a contract without reading it on her next appointment. The contract was actually her voluntarily committing to a 24 hour hold at Highland Creek Behavioral Center. Sawyer has no recourse to leave and is forced to stay as long as the people who run the center see fit. Then she sees David, but no one takes her seriously. Is David actually there or is it a hallucination due to the trauma she has experienced?

Unsane is a psychological thriller centered around a traumatized woman. We never experience what Sawyer did when she was being stalked, but we see how carefully she stays away from people and how she's still looking over her shoulder. Every so often, she'll see a similar looking man and panics, transported back to probably one of many traumatic events. When she goes to therapy, she expects a safe place to talk about all this and only finds exploitation and manipulation. This aspect of the film is a commentary on our health industry motivated by profits rather than actually helping or healing people. Sawyer tries to do what she can to move on and protect herself, but the trauma obviously affects her more than she admits to others.

While I like parts of the film, especially how the back and forth between if an attendant in the hospital is her stalker or not, Sawyer is a frustrating character that rarely acts in her own best interests. It's overwhelming to be imprisoned essentially against your will, but never sign something without reading it first. Right after that, she tries to call the police (which obviously doesn't work) and then becomes more and more violent, giving the authorities more fairly legitimate reasons to keep her even longer than the 24 hours required. This behavior continues for days afterwards and leaves her further and further from freedom. Sawyer also treated others like they were beneath her consistently through the film perhaps to keep that distance and protect herself, but the result was offputting.

This movie that was entirely filmed on an iPhone 7. For most of the film, I wouldn't even have noticed, but some of the shots later in the film didn't look grainy and out of focus. The shots inside the asylum weren't affected and the method contributed to the claustrophobic atmosphere. I think it's an innovative way to show other filmmakers that they don't need expensive equipment to make a film. On the other hand, the low budget approach led to some very bad acting on the part of the side characters. The main three actors stood out while the others paled in comparison. Stephen Soderbergh is not an indie director and the success of the film was more due to his name and the number of screens it played on.

Unsane is a bit frustrating to watch, but I still feel for Sawyer as she fights through. The ending goes places I didn't expect and shows that with this capitalistic, corrupt health system, people are expected to go on with their lives and act normally even if they are still living with trauma, PTSD, and/or anxiety. It's a well made film for the budget with a few good performances. It's worth your time, but nothing spectacular.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

The Dead House

Carly and Kaitlyn Johnson are two people in the same body. They have been this way their entire lives no matter what Dr. Lansing tries to tell them.  Carly is awake during the day while Kaitlyn is awake at night. They each have their own journals, which are kept private even from each other, and they communicate through notes. After the accident, the girls stayed full time in a psychiatric care, but are now allowed to attend Elmridge High, a boarding school. One day, Kaitlyn sees a figure and dismisses it. These visions, whether real or imagined, then recur with alarming regularity and realism. Kaitlyn then seeks help for these attacks. Does Carly/Kaitlyn have dissociative identity disorder? Is she being haunted or is she just delusional?

The Dead House takes place years after Elmbridge High burns down and after a number of students die or disappear during that time. It's an unsolved mystery that has gained popularity over a decade and the authorities are still trying to find out what happened. The book is a compilation of all the evidence related to the case: singed journals, descriptions of video clips, post its, testimonies, transcripts of therapy sessions, flyers, newspaper clippings, and instant messages. The amount of detail is insane. The edges of Kaitlyn's journal are burned throughout the book. Tons of fonts are used to detail the different mediums and handwritings. Some papers have bloodstains or doodles. The different perspectives and sheer detail involved are the book's strongest aspects.

There are two interpretations of the plot: either Kaitlyn is plagued by demons and an evil spellcaster or she is delusional and others play into that delusion as reality. The two sides are pretty thoroughly explored. Dr. Lansing, Kaitlyn/Carly's therapist, insists that Kaitlyn is a personality created by Carly's mind to protect her from the trauma of witnessing her parent's deaths, which neither of them remember. The visions and attacks could simply be delusions that were worsened by improper medication that causes psychosis and improper treatment. On the other hand, one of Carly's friend is a practitioner of Scottish witchcraft insists that she is possessed by a demon and targeted by an evil magic practitioner. The text never really picks one side or the other. I didn't connect with the Scottish magic stuff and I greatly preferred the psychological thriller aspects. The demons and magic parts simply weren't as strong.

The first half of the story is the stronger half because it focuses more on the psychological aspects of the story and introducing all the characters. Even though Carly is assumed to be the more dominant personality, we only really get to know Kaitlyn. She has never seen the daylight and mostly keeps to herself. Her friend circle has only a couple of people. I like Kaitlyn even though she is sometimes selfish. She isn't perfect and copes in her own ways, but cares for her sister unconditionally. The second half of the book has her descending into all this magic stuff and doing uncharacteristic, horrible things. She really lost my sympathy at that point and the book felt like it lost its way. I would give another book by Dawn Kurtagich a try because most of the book was interesting and addictive.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

Pretty Girl-13

Angela Chapman is thirteen years old. The last thing she remembers is going on a Girl Scouts trip and encountering a frightening person in the forest. Now, she is wearing weird clothes and has scars she doesn't remember getting. When she returns home, her parents tell her she has been gone for 3 years, but she still has no recollection of even being gone. As she is getting used to being 3 years older than she feels and acclimating to her new life, strange things start to happen. Angela finds chores done around the house, but no one admits to doing it. She wakes up exhausted after getting full night's sleep and finally finds a note written by a fragment of her personality called an alter. Dissociative identity disorder is the name of her condition, more famously known as multiple personality disorder. Now, Angela has to embark on a terrifying journey to collect the memories of her abduction and put her life back together.

I have read a few books on dissociative identity disorder, which is still very controversial and many still doubt the veracity of the disorder. I always thought the subject was much too adult for teens because of the descriptions of abuse that contributed to the fracturing of the main character's psyche. Liz Coley describes these events without an overabundance of detail and makes it palatable for a teen audience. The emotional impact is just as strong even without the more graphic descriptions that would be seen in an adult novel. Angela's story brings to mind the victims of prolonged abuse in the headlines today. I was disgusted, saddened, and filled with rage when further abuse in her past was dismissed by her relatives, by the way her so called friends treated her after she returned to school, and by the three years of abuse she had to endure. So, be prepared for an intense emotional roller coaster.

Angela and her personalities are very different from each other. Angie is an innocent, normal thirteen year old girl. She's confused and wants to find out about what happened to her. Her alters protected her from the horrible truth and in turn protect the reader as well by doling out information bit by bit. Girl Scout is resourceful and excels at cooking. Little Wife is forward, daring, and sexual. Tattletale is a shy, scared little girl. These are only the main ones. Some of the minor ones are much less fully realized. All of them have different opinions, senses of style, and preferences. The readers never get to experience the point of view of any of the alters, like Angela. We only see their written narratives, tape recordings, or the aftermath of their actions. I think it would have been nice to see them more up close and see the world through their eyes, but it was a strong narrative choice and makes us sympathize more with Angela.

Pretty Girl-13 is an addicting read that I finished in one sitting. I needed to know what happened and some of the revelations caught me by surprise. The only problem I had with the novel was the use of technology to instantly get rid of the alters. I'm not sure if that was made up, but it sounds too convenient. It takes decades of therapy to get to that point for most people. Other than that, I would recommend this book for those not afraid of an emotionally heavy, but ultimately inspiring novel.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins