Steamy scenes in a film aren’t a crime; neither is making a film centered on a dangerous liaison. Netflix’s latest, Obsession, is full of sex scenes that are aesthetically shot and is about an affair between a successful doctor and his prospective daughter-in-law. However, these aren’t sins; the real cardinal sin of them all is how little entertainment it manages to create out of this premise.
Dr William Farrow (Richard Armitage) is a doctor, who is inexplicably expected to be the next PM of the UK if he plays his cards right. His lovely family includes his wife Ingrid (Indira Varma), son Jay (Rish Shah), and daughter Sally (Sonera Angel). The perfect family with everything going for them faces a trainwreck of events with the entry of Anna (Charlie Murphy), who is Jay’s girlfriend, and who soon becomes embroiled in a passionate affair with William.
Cast: Richard Armitage, Charlie Murphy, Indira Varma, Rish Shah
Director: Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa
Streaming on: Netflix
Things are pretty odd right from their first meet-not-so-cute when William feeds her an olive, even after knowing she is the love of his son’s life. Of course, there is no need for righteousness to enter the debate, but just that the ‘passion’ that makes William break a bunch of societal constructs is virtually non-existent on screen. Again, there is no questioning the intensity of the sex scenes between them, but someone should have given the actors the memo that deep inhalation and exhalation might not always be the best way to show passion. The fixation on adding novelty to the sex scenes by upping the ante, adding rules to their world, and never-ending escapades become wearisome after a point because none of it adds anything to the narrative.
After a point, you really want the narrative to get somewhere. For lack of it, it feels like Obsession simply moves from one sex scene to another with random elements thrown in to extend the runtime. A blackmail angle crops up from nowhere, but not much gets made of it. A toxic parenting angle and an incest angle that feels intriguing, don’t get explored enough. We also have the downward spiral of a man who seemingly had everything going for him, but that is superficially dealt with just like the disintegration of this close-knit family.
The only genuine moments in Obsession are the scenes involving Indira Varma’s Ingrid realising the fractures in the marriage, and her final outburst towards her husband when the proverbial s**t hits the fan. Her fiery line at the end shows more truth, more drama, more passion, and more emotion than the entire film put together, and that there is a pretty damning testament about Obsession.Â
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