Obsession - General Discussion

[AnimeMania]

Obsession is a four episode erotic thriller TV Series streaming on Netflix on April 13, 2023. Be aware the series is rated rated TV-MA for nudity, sex, language, and smoking. Obsession is based on the Josephine Hart (1991) steamy novella, Damage, about a British politician who, in the prime of life, causes his own downfall through an inappropriate relationship. The TV Series focuses more on Anna and the main male character is now a respected London surgeon. The novel Damage has also been made into a movie of the same name in 1992 as well as an Opera in 2004.

Official Trailer - Probably NSFW

Richard Armitage as William, a surgeon who embarks on a passionate affair with his soon-to-be daughter in law, Anna.


Indira Varma as Ingrid, William’s wife


Rish Shah as Jay Farrow, William’s son 


Charlie Murphy as Anna Barton, Jay's fiancée and deeply committed to keeping both relationships  

Pippa Bennett-Warner as Peggy
Celine Arden as Mimi
Isla Jackson-Ritchie as Receptionist
Francesca Knight as Nadia
Greg Barnett as Patrick Clacy
Victor Pontecorvo as Olivier
Letty Thomas as Lynnette
Sonera Angel as Sally Farrow
Kerim Hassan as Johnno

[bosawks]

I remember that movie mostly for an absolutely searing scene at the end by Miranda Richardson.

She was incredible.

[Spartan Girl]

I just read the book. Guess I’m gonna check this out.

[AnimeMania]

Obsession    April 13, 2023   Netflix      

Episodes 1-4      Titles and Description

Spoiler

S01.E01: Episode 1
William and Ingrid look forward to meeting Jay's new girlfriend, Anna. But before their formal introduction, William and Anna lock eyes — and sparks fly.

S01.E02: Episode 2
As their passion intensifies, Anna establishes rules for William to follow, only for his resolve to be tested when she goes to Paris with Jay.

S01.E03: Episode 3 
Feeling on edge after receiving mysterious text messages during Anna and Jay’s engagement party, William soon slips up. Sally makes a confession.

S01.E04: Episode 4 
The walls begin to close in on William and Anna before a tragic event changes everything. Anna's mother admits to a shocking secret about the past.

[DanaMB]

I found it boring and predictable. 
 

And the father absolutely disgusted me when 

Spoiler

He said he didn’t regret their relationship even AFTER his son died as a result. 

 

[Snazzy Daisy]

50 Shades of Grey meets Fatal Attraction. Weak plot with lots of kinkiness and NOT so steamy scenes. They’re having an affair, we get it!

I like Richard Armitage but not as a horny bastard. And euww, WTF with the pillow shagging??! 😳

Charlie Murphy plays Anna Barton as someone creepy. It’s a turn off. Juliette Binoche has done a slightly better job in playing Anna.

If I have to choose, I’d prefer Damage (1992) more. Jeremy Irons and Miranda Richardson were more compelling than Richard Armitage and Indira Varma.

 

[AstridM]

On 4/7/2023 at 4:39 PM, bosawks said:

I remember that movie mostly for an absolutely searing scene at the end by Miranda Richardson.

She was incredible.

I loved that movie! Jeremy irons!

[Enero]

I agree with others. This was boring. I made it through the first episode and gave up. The leads had no heat. The husband/dad was a creep. The mistress was trifling as well. Don’t understand what she hoped to accomplish either with this situation besides getting sex which she could get from the son. Also, she looked kind of crazy. 😂 I thought that should’ve been enough for the husband/dad to steer clear of her but some men enjoy the crazy sooo… 😂 

[Kiss my mutt]

Good gravy, this was bad. I’m totally embarrassed for Armitage taking this role. This is definitely his Gili. Poor Varna, is this penance for something.

The sex scenes were awkwardly kinky and gratuitous. Their immediate attraction didn’t make sense to me. I kept waiting to see if they had a backstory and had met before or she was a former patient with a bad outcome and she wanted to destroy his life.  They had  no chemistry to the point it played as parody. 
Yuck, Yuck.  

[Fleegull]

On 4/7/2023 at 4:39 PM, bosawks said:

I remember that movie mostly for an absolutely searing scene at the end by Miranda Richardson.

She was incredible.

Miranda Richardson won a Bafta and secured the film's only Academy Award nomination for that role. I read about how this new production wanted to beef up Anna's role but it seems to have come at the expense of Ingrid's part. Lord did the creators of this show go off on how the novel was from a man's point of view, eliding over the fact that it was written by Josephine Hart. It's clear in the novel and the film that the whole endeavor is leading up to the scene where the wife finally unleashes her righteous fury on her husband for blowing up their family. No one needed to know more about Anna, she wasn't that important, it was the betrayal, not how or why it happened that mattered.

We are never going to get a nuanced portrayal of BDSM onscreen if people can't allow for it to be shown in a healthy way. Yes, it is often a way for people to work out past trauma (and there's nothing wrong with that) but people also enjoy it and know how to practice it with respect, boundaries (like she lays out boundaries and he proceeds to plow through each one and she lets him, why?) and mutual ongoing consent.

[Adgirl]

I think Damage is a fantastic movie. I love it for introducing me to Jeremy Irons back then. 

However, Obsession doesn't do the source material any justice. There was smoldering chemistry between Irons and Binoche; I'm not getting that from these actors. It's gratuitous and creepy. Also if you're going to do a full frontal, do it with your chest out like Chris Pine in The Outlaw King.

I found this a big disappointment.

[MagnaMater]

On 4/7/2023 at 4:39 PM, bosawks said:

I remember that movie mostly for an absolutely searing scene at the end by Miranda Richardson.

She was incredible.

Poor Indira never stood a chance against that performance. 

[Spartan Girl]

Why were they trying to make Anna more sympathetic? Yes, what happened with her brother was disgusting and horrible, but it’s no excuse for what she did to Jay. And that final scene suggests that even though she, unlike the father, regretted everything, she was about to repeat her same pattern with the shrink. Yuck.

[Empress1]

On 4/14/2023 at 8:06 AM, DanaMB said:

I found it boring and predictable. 
 

And the father absolutely disgusted me when 

  Reveal spoiler

He said he didn’t regret their relationship even AFTER his son died as a result. 

 

And he replied “but it’s all done now” when Anna said they’d caused so much pain. BRUH YOUR SON IS DEAD. He died knowing that the two people he was supposed to be able to trust most betrayed him in such an egregious way. The last thing he saw as he died was his father fucking his fiancée. His WIFE, their son’s mother, had to learn that her husband was cheating on her AND THAT HER SON IS DEAD in the same conversation. She will grieve for the rest of her life, and so should he, and he said “[the pain] is done now?” And maybe his wife had become “irrelevant to [him],” as she put it, but it’s implied that he’ll never see his other kid again, ever - and he thinks a few fucks are worth losing BOTH HIS KIDS? THE AUDACITY.

If I squint, I can see his point about not wanting all the pain they caused to be for nothing. I don’t think he actually meant that; he was just trying to keep her on the hook, but I can see what he meant. But “oh well, my son is dead because of me but that’s behind us” when it happened, like, last week and has destroyed the rest of his family is … beyond.

I watched five minutes of the first episode, and the last episode. It’s been fun reading reviews (it’s getting PANNED). One said “all the actors look like they have to use the toilet.” That one was my favorite.

[lightninggirl]

Just finished it last night. I read the book and saw the original in 1992, and everyone above it correct - Miranda Richardson absolutely kicked that role right out of the park and Indira had to work with what she was given. She did a fantastic job in her final scene with Richard Armitage. I loved the actor who played her dad and wish he had more screen time.

I will watch a naked Armitage all day, every day, but he underplayed pretty much everything in this role ... except for the solo scene where he was humping the hotel room bed. 🙄 He looked almost strung out much of the time with the red-rimmed eyes and nearly gaunt face. He also looked horrible in "Stay Close," but at least he was a little more animated in that. I get that the role calls for a more smouldering slow-burn type of acting, but it seemed like he was just mute and staring into space for 90% of it.

I couldn't stand Jay. The actor was annoying to me and I'm not sure how he looked "just like" Anna's brother to the point where her mother was taken aback at the engagement party. 

I did like them fleshing out the character of Sally into an actual person instead of a decorative doorstop and actually giving her something to do with the texting. I'm not sure if I would've bought the whole diary thing; the explanation was still sus.

Also, for my Torchwood fans: They Keep Killing Suzie!!! 😂❤️

[bosawks]

What's weird to me as someone who read the book and saw the movie is that I can't envision a world in which my response to the book and movie would be, "What this story needs is more Anna!"

 

[Madding crowd]

I hated Anna and William so much . I vaguely remember the old Jeremy Irons film but don’t remember it as so annoying. No one speaks like Anna did in real life. Most people would not want to be engaged with someone who refuses to answer questions and says “learn to love the questions “. What does that even mean? 

[Spartan Girl]

On 4/18/2023 at 8:41 PM, Empress1 said:

BRUH YOUR SON IS DEAD. He died knowing that the two people he was supposed to be able to trust most betrayed him in such an egregious way. The last thing he saw as he died was his father fucking his fiancée. His WIFE, their son’s mother, had to learn that her husband was cheating on her AND THAT HER SON IS DEAD in the same conversation. She will grieve for the rest of her life, and so should he, and he said “[the pain] is done now?” And maybe his wife had become “irrelevant to [him],” as she put it, but it’s implied that he’ll never see his other kid again, ever - and he thinks a few fucks are worth losing BOTH HIS KIDS? THE AUDACITY.

If I squint, I can see his point about not wanting all the pain they caused to be for nothing. I don’t think he actually meant that; he was just trying to keep her on the hook, but I can see what he meant. But “oh well, my son is dead because of me but that’s behind us” when it happened, like, last week and has destroyed the rest of his family is … beyond.

Honestly, Ingrid deserved a medal for not putting a hit on him and Anna right then and there. Of course, she deserve a medal even if she did.

While it was better that Anna didn’t show her face at the funeral, the fact that she could just walk away from the scene of the accident like nothing at all was so cold that I could not buy her later remorse over her actions.

[Empress1]

49 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Honestly, Ingrid deserved a medal for not putting a hit on him and Anna right then and there.

I don’t know how she didn’t clock him dead in the eye. It’s bad enough that he cheated on her, it’s the worst that Jay died, and it’s also horrible that he (and Anna) hurt Jay so badly. Like in her shoes I could maybe forgive an affair but I could not forgive an affair, or any action taken by my hypothetical husband, that hurt my child like that. 

[Spartan Girl]

It annoyed me how in the book, Ingrid remained quite civil even though she told William that she never wanted to see him again. But that also added to the "oh poor William, Anna was so alluring that he couldn't help himself" bullshit. So if nothing else, at least this version of Ingrid didn't bother with the pretense of politeness: she just screamed at him to get out after the funeral, and justifiably so.

[SHD]

I wish I could quote everyone who’s posted so far because you’re all correct. I read the book and saw the movie 30 years ago so only remembered the basic details. I stuck through it the whole way hoping it would get better. I’m adding my vote to anyone here who said this was creepy, boring, and embarrassing.

[Sweet-tea]

After watching this, I decided to watch the 1992 film again. I remembered it vaguely. I was surprised how similar the story was, but they managed to drag it out to several episodes vs. one movie that was less than two hours. It’s also interesting that the name Anna Barton was the same, but the others were different. The son was Martin in the movie. 

I had a hard time relating to Anna in this show and the movie. The Juliet Binoche version wasn’t any more sympathetic to me. She still just walked away immediately after her fiance died tragically after seeing her screwing his dad. Jeremy Irons has made a career at playing rather unusual and sometimes sketchy characters, so I think he was better cast in the role of the obsessed cheater. 

The sex scenes in the Louis Malle film threw me. I remembered them as being erotic from my first watch many years ago. But from my second watch, they seemed clunky, desperate and awkward. I don’t know.. maybe that was what the director was going for. I didn’t like the scene of Miranda Richardson topless asking her husband if this wasn’t good enough for him. It seemed gratuitous to me and made me think the director was a creep. He directed 11 year-old Brooke Shields playing a prostitute in Pretty Baby, so maybe nothing this influenced me. 

Miranda Richardson was good but I also think Indira was good. I found her just as effective in the scene where she’s learned of her son’s death and is reacting to it. JMI. 

I thought the ending in the film was better than the ending in the series. It showed how pathetic the man was, sitting in his little hovel in front of a giant picture of Anna and still fixated on her. 

I didn’t like the scene of Miranda Richardson topless asking her husband if this was enough for him. It seemed gratuitous and made me think the director was a creep. He directed 11 year-old Brooke Shields playing a prostitute in Pretty Baby, so perhaps this influenced my thinking. 

The first thing I thought when I saw Anna with her therapist at the end was, why on earth didn’t she get a female therapist? If you’re a woman who has been through sexual trauma with a male, do you really want to choose a male therapist? 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Sweet-tea
Realized series was only about 150 minutes, so about the same as the film.