Obsessed
How has a movie that looks like it should go straight-to-video become a box-office hit?
That’s the question I went into “Obsessed” with. The answer, as it turns out, is smart plotting, good performances, and a PG-13 friendly cat fight between Beyonce Knowles and Ali Larter that will go down as one of the greats in exploitation cinema.
The story- scripted with an obvious attempt to reinvigorate the “Fatal Attraction” mode by David Loughery- is simple enough. A married man (Idris Elba’s Derek) just moves into a new house with wife Sharon (Beyonce) and young son Kyle. He’s got a good job at an investment firm and a history of flirting with his assistants (Sharon was the last female one he had). While going up to his office, he trades some glances with temp Lisa (Larter). The two share some barbs, and Derek’s boss Joe and bud Ben (Jerry O’Connell) trade some sexist remarks about this beauty. But it’s not long before Derek finds himself in a compromising position. He’s just trying to be a nice guy, obviously in love with his wife and son, but Lisa has other ideas. Soon she is sending him revealing photos, jumping him at a Christmas party, and revealing herself to him in the parking garage. But Derek doesn’t want anything to do with it. But as with plenty of men in similar films in the past (typically Michael Douglas, as evidenced in “Fatal Attraction,” “Basic Instinct,” and “Disclosure,” all of which this film echoes), he doesn’t always do the right thing.
One of the unexpected pleasures in this film- complete with standard suspense score and workmanlike direction by Steve Shill- is how thoroughly is makes the film a revealing look at the unfolding of a marriage under such duress. There are no easy paths taken- Derek pays for his disloyalty to Sharon in not being honest- despite every other cliche that is turned over by the film. And there are no slackers in the performers- Elba and Knowles make a believably loving- and fractured- couple, while Larter (from “Heroes”) is a femme fatale in the vein of those in the aforementioned Douglas films. She makes Lisa sympathetic while also showing off how freaking psychotic she is, and not backing away from it. Yes, the film is cliche central from the start, but the film works as a thriller in the same way I feel “Lady Beware”- an ’80s thriller with Diane Lane featured in my “Movie a Week” column- does, by playing the characters honestly, and managing some twists on the conventional, even if in the end, the film couldn’t be more conventional.
