Unsound

A young videographer, overburdened by his schizophrenic mother, decides to get her admitted to a mental hospital but only encounters more problems with state bureaucracy and the woman’s violent resistance to psychiatric treatment. Writer-director-star Darious Britt based this debut feature on personal experience, and though it’s rough around the edges, it feels authoritative in its depiction of schizoaffective disorder and its subtle critique of our broken mental-health care system. In precise, infuriating detail, Britt shows how the system enables and even encourages doctors and patients to opt out of formal treatment, shifting the responsibility for psychiatric care from medical professionals to patients’ friends and families. Britt’s matter-of-fact visual style makes his social observations all the more heartrending, as does Toreenee Wolf’s nuanced performance as the mother.