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| “ | I love it when you wear blue. I mean, I love you in anything. But you wore blue that first time I saw you, so anytime I see you in blue, it reminds me of how I felt at that moment. How I never really knew what being alive was until I saw you. You unlocked something inside me that day, something I didn't even realize was there. And right then, I knew that nothing in my life was ever going to be the same. In that moment, I was transformed permanently. You did that. | „ |
| ~ David revealing his obsession with Sawyer. |
David Strine is the main antagonist of the 2018 film Unsane by Steven Soderbergh.
He was portrayed by Joshua Leonard, who is mostly known for playing Josh in The Blair Witch Project.
Personality[]
Like most stalkers, David is delusional and sexually repressed; he lives in a fantasy world where protagonist Sawyer Valentini returns his obsessive love, despite all evidence to the contrary, and it is implied that he has never had sex. He is also prone to fits of rage and violence when he does not get what he wants, ultimately killing a patient after Sawyer tricks him and murdering her mother when she tries to investigate Sawyer's being committed.
History[]
David met Sawyer Valentini at a hospice she had been volunteering at, where she communicated with his senile father. After his father died, David began stalking Sawyer, convinced that she truly loved him even though, in reality, they hardly know each other. She eventually took out a restraining order against him, and moved to Boston to get away from him when he kept following her.
Sawyer spots him once again at her newest job, prompting her to seek help from a counselor at Highland Creek Behavioral Center. Sawyer signs a release that she very quickly learns caused her to be committed for 24 hours. Insistant that she's sane and that she's being held against her will, she gets into physicals altercation with two other patients that leads to her being committed for a week.
She spots David, now going under the name George Shaw and working at the hospital as a nurse; unbeknownst to his superiors, David had murdered the real George Shaw and stolen his identity. Her cries to the staff that her stalker is after her fall on deaf ears when they assume she's suffering from psychotic delusions. At one point, he feeds her a heavy dose of methylphenidate to have her appear more violent and disoriented. Sawyer makes friends with Nate, another patient, who allows her to use his smuggled cell phone to call her mother. As she begins putting in the effort to have her daughter released, David infiltrates her motel room disguised as an AC repairman, and kills her. He then kidnaps Nate and murders him with a lethal dose of fentanyl, leading the staff to assume Nate's death was an accidental overdose.
David secretly gives Sawyer Nate's phone with pictures of him bloodied and restrained. As she frantically tries to alert the staff, she is sedated and put into solitary confinement. David is then able to speak to Sawyer alone, having deactivated the security cameras so that no one can hear their conversation. He professes his love for her and says that he's working to have it look like her insurance ran out so that she can be discharged, and that they will spend the rest of their lives together at his cabin in the woods. Sawyer mocks him for his impotence and unwillingness to move on with his life, and he chokes her in a fit of rage.
The next morning, Sawyer convinces David to have sex with another woman in front of her, with him believing that his doing so will make it look as though he can love someone other than her and potentially make himself more attractive to her. She chooses Violet, another patient, whom David is unaware has a shank smuggled in the waistband of her pants. After bringing her down to the padded cell, Sawyer manages to take the Violet's shank and stab David in the side of the neck. As Sawyer flees, David break's Violet's neck. She manages to escape the hospital, but is quickly caught and knocked unconscious by David.
After waking up in the trunk of David's car with the corpse of her mother, Sawyer escapes and runs off into the woods, where David catches her and breaks her ankle with a hammer. He lays beside her and once again professes his love. While David is distracted, she stabs him in the eye with her mother's crucifix before slitting his throat, killing him.
Trivia[]
- Highland Creek is inspired by Universal Health Services, which was reported for similar embezzlement and insurance fraud.