La Vie Belem

Thanks to the lovely redbox I was able to rent Obsessed for a mere $1.08. Good thing too because I would not have payed any more money to see this film. I probably should have saved the $1.08 and tried searching for it online.

Penned by David Loughery (Lakeview Terrace, Tom and Huck) and directed by Steve Shill, this film centers around Derek Charles (Idris Elba) and the new temp at his office, Lisa (Ali Larter). Immediately you can see there is a mutual attraction, but Derek is faithful to his wife Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles) and would never even consider cheating on her despite friendly cajoling by his colleague and friend Ben (Jerry O’Connell). However, Derek’s marriage does not seem to stop Lisa who takes Derek’s niceties—such as when he consoles her after her boyfriend dumps her (I’m convinced there really wasn’t a boyfriend, but rather just a ploy conceived to get closer to Derek) or politely engages in office banter—as come-ons. Shortly enough, she becomes, as the title tells us, obsessed: she stalks, eavesdrops, invades his privacy, throws herself on him and even crawls into his car half-naked and refuses to leave despite Derek’s blatant admonitions. Slowly we become more aware that Lisa is truly crazy. The more Derek tells her he isn’t interested, the more she creates false stories that they were having an affair and he was divorcing his wife for her.

The plot is glaringly comparable to the married-man-has-an-affair classic cautionary tale Fatal Attraction, but without the actual affair. This brings up several problems I have with the film.

First, how is it feasible that Lisa becomes so obsessed with Derek without a single encouragement from him? In Fatal Attraction at least Glenn Close’s character Alex was jilted—she was wined and dined believing she could actually have Dan (Michael Douglas)—before she went mad. Of course, she was psychotic, but her obsession was substantiated in a way. Lisa, nonetheless, went from zero to deranged in about twenty minutes of screen time. Therein lies the crux of the problem: the idea that a woman could become so delusional irks me and shows weak plot development.

Another problem is the blurring of the genres. I am big fan of challenging genres and mixing them up a little (Quentin Tarantino anyone?), but this just seemed rather like a miscalculation. The film was marketed as a thriller (see the trailer below), but as we start watching it the low-angle shots coupled with the creepy music makes it seem like a horror film. Personally, I was never scared, just slightly amused by its ridiculousness. We can’t help but laugh at the email Derek gets from Lisa after he sends her a rather stern message of “LEAVE ME ALONE.” Quite simply she sends him a response with a huge smiley face in the center. If that wasn’t funny enough, the eerie music playing in the background and the zoomed in camera angle intentionally attempts to make this scene sinister, but fails miserably because there is no way anyone is going to find a smiley face threatening. The mere juxtaposition of the music and cinematography with the smiley face seems inane.

My last issue with the film is that we basically knew what was going to happen within the first fifteen minutes of the film, essentially right after we see Lisa looking up Derek’s biography on the company website. We knew that Lisa would become obsessed thus creating problems for Derek at work and at home which would eventually lead to one major showdown— all the while knowing that Derek is truly innocent. Blah. Been there, done that. I think it would have been far more interesting if we had seen the film from Sharon’s perspective. This woman would had no idea if her husband truly was cheating on her or if Lisa was genuinely insane. The story would have been far more suspenseful because we would be as clueless as Sharon until the end.

Part of me did enjoy some aspects of the film, mainly just how loony Lisa was. You can’t help but laugh at some of her manipulative stunts. Nevertheless, when you are laughing constantly at a film marketed as a thriller meant to quicken your heart rate, something just isn’t quite right. Trust me, this film is nothing to get obsessed over.

(Also, I must say I really like this movie poster, which is a rare phenomenon for me. All the actors look great and for the most part it accurately sums up the film. Yet, it makes it seem like Beyoncé is the star of the film, which is odd considering how she’s barely in the first two-thirds of the film. I guess they are basing it off of star power and maybe the ending?)