Obsessed (Review)

Obsessed tells the story of Sharon and Derek (played by Beyoncé Knowles and Idris Elba), a happily married, beautiful young couple who find their lives shaken by Lisa (played by Ali Larter), a shameless and totally psycho woman who temps at Derek's office. As the film's title suggests, Lisa becomes ridiculously enamored by Derek and attempts to sexually assault him everywhere from the men's room during a Christmas party to a business retreat and it only gets worse from there. After a certain amount of time and after the couple's baby has come into play, Sharon catches on to Lisa's stupidity and the two have the big old catfight that the whole movie's promotion was based around.

Obsessed is nothing more than a weak version of Fatal Attraction. The various actions of the main characters are ill-defined and rather frustrating and it doesn't help that their every move is telegraphed well in advance thanks to run of the mill writing and direction. The worst of the bunch is the villainous Lisa for the which the film makes no attempt to supply a motive or even a misunderstanding for the young woman's creepy behavior. She just becomes crazy for Derek after a normal conversation in an elevator for no reason other than what I assume is sheer mental retardation. I spent most of the movie snickering at her increasing loopy actions to snag Derek and none of these actions are suppose to funny...they're just stupid.

Derek is played well by Elba, but his character is forced to act rather moronically simply for screenwriting necessity. Derek is a faithful, honest man and never shows any interest in Lisa. Despite Lisa's increasingly disturbing behavior, he only once makes an attempt to properly tell someone about it. Derek doesn't tell any of this to his wife until after Lisa's actions go too far and as a result the trust between them is broken and he gets kicked out of the house. Everyone then treats Derek as if he actually slept with the temptress and for all this grief he might as well had. Beyonce does what she can to bring life to Sharon's character but falls flat. The film tries to make her sympathetic, but she unfortunately falls for the undesirable role of overly sensitive wife. She professes her trust for her husband only to forbid him explicitly from working closely with women of any kind. When she finally finds out about the trouble with Lisa, she's rightfully upset for not being told about but she over reacts by kicking Derek out of the house for 3 months. Sharon isn't given much to do until the finale where she and Lisa duke it out. The fight scene is scene is well choreographed and fairly intense though it doesn't make up for the rather mediocre nature of the rest of the film. I recommend Fatal Attraction over this film, until Beyonce and Ali Larter duke it out at the end, this is one uneven film.