Limited Series Review: Netflix’s Obsession Isn’t Much to Obsess About

Obsession is a 21st-century adaptation of the 1991 novel Damage by Josephine Hart about a seemingly happily married, successful British…

Obsession is a 21st-century adaptation of the 1991 novel Damage by Josephine Hart about a seemingly happily married, successful British politician who has an affair with his son’s fiancee with tragic results. The Netflix limited series sticks to the original story, but makes the married man, William (Richard Armitage, The Hobbit), a successful surgeon and the object of his desire Anna (Charlie Murphy, Peaky Blinders), works in politics. William’s wife of over 20 years, Ingrid (Indira Varma, Game of Thrones), is a successful Lawyer who is still head over heels in love with her husband and blissfully happy with their two adult children.

Obsession feels like it’s trying to be a throwback to the erotic thrillers of the late ’80s and early ’90s, like Sliver, Sex Lies and Video Tape, or 9 ½ Weeks, but why would we want to go back there? Besides, Obsession didn’t hold my interest. William was an intensely one-dimensional character with absolutely nothing interesting or attractive about him. He was so boring. The audience has no reason to fall in love with him or root for him. He never smiled, had zero charm, and there was nothing attractive about his personality. The best thing about him was his devoted wife, Ingrid. Indira Varma was the most interesting person in this completely atrocious limited series. William’s obsession with Anna made no sense to me. They lock eyes at an event and meet at the bar, and this bland British woman compels this guy to destroy his entire life just to get into her pants. That’s it? Really? There was nothing special about Anna. She was so bland. The voice, the look, the way she presented herself all vanilla.

The mind-numbingly frustrating part about colorblind casting is when writers ignore the nuance of interracial couples as a point of conflict to tell the story of the relationship. In this story, William is a white British man, and Ingrid is a South Asian British William has an affair with his son’s White female fiancee. When you are in an interracial relationship, and someone cheats on you with someone of the same race, and you find out about it, there will be a high stakes uncomfortable conversation. With all of this colorblind casting happening on TV, I doubt any of the writers have the lived experience of being in interracial relationships. What Ingrid brings up about Anna is her age. In this world, race is never mentioned as a plot point that felt fake. Of course, Anna has a Black best friend, Peggy, (Pippa Bennett-Warner, Gangs of London), who is the moral compass of the story and is totally dedicated to Anna. I love to see Pippa Bennett-Warner’s work, but this character is just a polished version of Black female characters created to nurture White women.

Then there are the encounters between Anna and William. The scenes of intimacy were like multiple penis-to-vaginal handshakes between these two characters. William seemed like Anna was just a receptacle for him to ejaculate into. Each intimacy scene was two dead-faced open-mouthed British people doing light bondage while looking deeply into one another’s eyes. The writer stated that in the book, Anna was a seductress who just blew up the family and left. In the limited series, Anna has a thin back story of sexual abuse that was contrived. In one scene, (that has gone viral on social media) William masturbates to Anna’s scent on a pillow that was surprising. It made me wonder, why is it that male masturbation is often portrayed on screen as deviant sexual behavior when it’s something that most men probably do quite a bit? There are so many ways that this could have been used to create an unexpected connection between Anna and William that showcased her power over him throughout the series that could have made these characters seem like they were truly connected.

At the end of the day, Obsession was predictable, tedious and unsexy.

I give this limited series 1 star.

Stay Safe

J9

Thanks for reading. I’m a Film & TV Critic, Entertainment Journalist, VisAbleBlackwoman The Podcast host, and Contributor to Black Girl Nerds.

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