Film Deets:
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay: Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer
Actresses: Claire Foy, Juno Temple
Category: Stalking
Themes: Forced Confinement, Psychological Abuse, Attempted Rape
Why do these screams matter?
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Unsane (2018) explores the psychological torment caused by stalking. The film follows Sawyer (Claire Foy), a young woman who has moved out of state as a result of being stalked by an acquaintance. Although she is able to build a successful professional life, Sawyer still feels unmoored by living in a perpetual state of fear. When she seeks mental health help, she is tricked into voluntarily committing herself to a psychiatric hospital as part of an insurance fraud scheme.
In this first scream, Sawyer comes face to face with her stalker, David (Joshua Leonard), who is masquerading as an orderly named George.
Escalating from a pointed vocal objection to David’s presence to guttural expressions of rage, this scream sequence reveals the ease by which privilege can be weaponized. In terms of power, David holds all the cards. Because Sawyer is in a psychiatric hospital, her words are already suspect. This is evident in how those around her immediately dismiss her claims against David. Her lack of agency in this environment means that Sawyer has no way to advocate for herself and this makes her a target for sexual violence, a devastating reality for many women. While a 2005 report in Psychiatric Services noted the need for increased studies into abuses sustained by patients occurring within psychiatric settings, data on these experiences within the United States is dated and limited (Frueh, et al.). But a 2018 report by United Kingdom Care Quality Commission found “273 alleged sexual assaults in psychiatric facilities were reported to the National Health Service during a 3-month period” (Barnett).
On some level, David recognizes the power inherent in the cultural capital that comes with being a white, cisgender male in the United States. His actions, such as stressing his “calm” demeanor in the face of Sawyer’s escalating anger and fear, are calculated to play upon ingrained norms that cast women as hysterical when expressing an emotional response to a situation. David recognizes that if he can frame Sawyer as unstable in the eyes of those around her, he will then have unrestricted access to her. The more Sawyer’s screams increase, the more reasonable David attempts to appear, and it is a dynamic that Sawyer recognizes too late. Sawyer’s shift to nonverbal, guttural sounds when her words prove futile are akin to sounds an animal makes when sensing danger and suggests her recognition of a looming threat.
This implied threat becomes explicit in our next scream. Feeling threatened by Sawyer’s burgeoning relationship with another patient, David forces Sawyer to overdose resulting in her becoming erratic and violent.
On its face, these screams represent Sawyer’s disconnect from reality, a state underscored by shaky camera work and blurred imagery. But the sequence also illustrates the full extent of David’s privilege. The nurse in charge realizes that Sawyer was drugged but she elects not to report the incident after David paints himself as someone sympathetic who just made a calculation error. At no point does the nurse consider that the overdose was intentional, despite being present for Sawyer’s earlier proclamations that David is her stalker. With his slightly bumbling nature and propensity to smile and lower his eyes when in conversation with women, David’s George persona is crafted to explicitly demasculinize his behavior and to reframe his threatening behavior.
Sawyer’s screams are a hybrid of disassociation and anger that are slowly overtaken by a mix of ambient sounds and they are reflective of her experiences of being stalked. Despite her best efforts, Sawyer is actively silenced by structures that benefit the stalker and not the victim. Not only does she have to move away from family and friends and go relatively silent for fear of being found by David, but she also is in an environment where her voice holds no power. Sawyer’s screams and the noises that overtake them reflect the harsh reality of stalking survivors: to escape a predatory gaze often means rendering oneself invisible. As Laura R. Kremmel notes in her review of the film, “For women in this vulnerable position, this is the real horror” (156).
The ambient noises that overtake her screams echo how David has so fully taken over her existence and has left her with nothing but anger in the face of isolating silence. The obfuscation of Sawyer’s screams in this moment reflects the systemic structures that force women who experience stalking into behaviors intended to make them smaller as a means of combating unwanted attention. Suggestions such as eliminating social media, moving to a new location, and changing jobs (all steps taken by Sawyer) place the onus of safety on the victim.Sawyer’s screams and the noises that overtake them reflect the harsh reality of stalking survivors: to escape a predatory gaze often means rendering oneself invisible. As Laura R. Kremmel notes in her review of the film, “For women in this vulnerable position, this is the real horror” (156).
It is from this silo of isolation that our final screams emerge. Believing she has no other option but to fight back against David using his own strategic violence, Sawyer convinces David that he needs to lose his virginity before she can be with him and she implores him to bring another patient, Violet (Juno Temple), to the room in which he now holds Sawyer captive.
This scene is a complicated one in both how it frames Sawyer’s violence and its demonization of Violet. Violet’s screams emerge as she realizes she is about to be raped by David per Sawyer’s instruction. Her fear is palpable and warranted but the film also subtly implies that her earlier actions have led to this moment. In this sense, her scream is a traditional one. She recognizes the danger and is screaming to be heard in the hopes that others may hear and intervene. But her scream is also a means to center audience attention on Violet so that we are reminded that her actions have contributed to her plight. Throughout the film, Violet antagonizes Sawyer such that when the time comes to select a sexual proxy, she immediately picks Violet. As she attempts to silence Violet’s screams, Sawyer whispers that she knows Violet’s actions are because she wanted Sawyer to notice her. The introduction of sexual desire on Violet’s part aligns her with David in difficult and problematic ways. While it is true that Violet actively worked to restrict Sawyer’s agency in response to their attraction to Sawyer, like David, Violet’s motivations are far murkier. Not only does the revelation of Violet’s sexual interest in Sawyer seemingly take Violet by surprise (and is likely not something she had even processed), but the audience never learns whether she is in the hospital for a medical condition or if she is a captive like Sawyer. While David is acting from a position of privilege, Violet’s rage is a direct result of her status as an outcast. In this moment, her screams demarcate her as both monster and victim.
The film suggests that Sawyer has no intention of letting Violet be raped and that she asked David to bring Violet to the room because she wanted access to Violet’s shank. And indeed, Sawyer does use the weapon to get away from David. But in doing so, she leaves Violet behind and at David’s mercy. And so, while Sawyer never intended for Violet to be raped, her actions do specifically lead to Violet’s violent death. That the film then asks viewers to cheer Sawyer’s ultimate freedom and to never interrogate that it came at the expense of another’s life and through replicating the violence of her stalker is a deeply disturbing commentary on how systemic violence is experienced by women.
Works Cited
Barnett, Brian. “Addressing Sexual Violence in Psychiatric Facilities.” Psychiatric Services, vol. 71, no. 9, 2020, pp. 959-961.
Frueh, B. Christopher, et al. “Special Section on Seclusion and Restraint: Patients’ Reports of Traumatic or Harmful Experiences Within the Psychiatric Setting.” Psychiatric Services, vol. 56. No. 9, 2005, pp. 1123-1133.
Kremmel, Laura R. “Unsane.” Irish Gothic Journal, no. 17, 2018, pp. 154-157.
