Netflix’s latest, Obsession, is an erotic thriller that revolves around an affair between a successful doctor and his prospective daughter-in-law and is full of steamy scenes. While making a show on dangerous liaisons isn’t a sin, the actual crime of this production is how little entertainment it manages to offer.
The fact that it is based on Josephine Hart’s 1991 gripping novel, Damage, and has Jeremy Iron and Juliette Binoche’s hit film of the same name to take cue from, only makes it more disappointing.
William Farrow (Richard Armitage) is a doctor, who is inexplicably expected to be the next UK prime minister, if he plays his cards right. His perfect family, which includes his wife Ingrid (Indira Varma), son Jay (Rish Shah) and daughter Sally (Sonera Angel), has everything going for them, that is, until Anna (Charlie Murphy), Jay’s girlfriend, enters their lives. Soon after, William and Anna get embroiled in an affair.
Things turn odd pretty much right after their first interaction. William feeds her an olive in what was presumably an act of passion, except that the power, which makes him break a bunch of societal constructs, is virtually non-existent on screen. Despite the overbearing nudity, the show falls flat, making William and Anna’s never-ending escapades wearisome. After a point, they add no value to the narrative. The actors’ awkward expressions don’t help either. Obsession has been promoted as an erotic thriller. Unfortunately, both are absent. The story is nothing more than a set of salacious frames, put one after the other, making evident the director’s sheer lack of imagination.
There is a toxic parenting, and an incest angle that show some promise, but aren’t explored enough. We also have William’s downward spiral, which is superficially dealt with, as is the disintegration of his close-knit family.
The only genuine moments are the scenes involving Varma’s Ingrid realising the fractures in her marriage, and her eventual outburst. Her fiery line at the end shows more truth, more drama, more passion, and more emotion than the entire series put together, and that is a pretty damning testament about Obsession.
Obsession
Director: Glenn Leyburn,
Lisa Barros D’Sa
Genre: Erotic thriller
Platform: Netflix
Language: English