Obsessed Trailer
Director:Steve Shill
Writer (WGA):David Loughery (written by)
Release Date:24 April 2009 (USA)
Genre:Drama | Thriller
Plot:A successful professional man with a beautiful wife finds his idyllic life threatened by a temp in his office who reveals herself as a stalker.
For slightly more than half its running time, "Obsession" is an entertaining, romantic suspense film of slightly less than transcendental style, a movie conceived (but not executed) in the Hitchcock manner, scored by late Bernard Hermann with what sounds to be enough music to fill an average-sized cathedral and three movies.
Brian De Palma, the director, and Paul Schrader, the writer, have made a mistake, I suspect, in allowing "Obsession" to be identified as an hommage to Hitchcock. It puts a needless strain upon them, and upon us, who thus come to expect something more complex, more terse and more stylish than the film they've made. To be blunt, "Obsession" is no "Vertigo," Hitchcock's witty, sardonic study of obsession that did transcend its material, which wasn't all that bad to start with.
The Schrader screenplay, based on an original story by Mr. Schrader and Mr. De Palma, is most effective when it's most romantic, and transparent when it attempts to be mysterious. Constructing a satisfying mystery is like trying to make up a crossword puzzle that works in three dimensions. One little point doesn't work and the whole thing has to be done over.
Hitchcock's plot aren't always that perfect, but when they aren't he's perceptive enough to know it, and magician enough to distract our attention in a way that is even more satisfying than the identification of logic.
The plot of "Obsession" is such that you'll probably have figured out the mystery very early. No amount of subsequent red herrings can build up one's interest to its original peak. Instead of rising, it goes gently downhill to its climax.
The film, which opened yesterday at the Coronet, requires a lot of exposition to get going, and it's a measure of the movie that the exposition is more entertaining, more moving than most of the drama that follows.
"Obsession" is the story of an ambitious young New Orleans businessman, Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson), who, in 1948, meets and marries the object of his dreams, Elizabeth (Genevieve Bujold), a pretty, chic young woman who shares his success. In 1959, after a party celebrating their 10th anniversary, Elizabeth and their daughter are kidnapped and, apparently, killed when a police-backed rescue attempt fails.
The movie then cuts to 1975, when Michael, more successful than ever but obsessed by his guilt for having failed his wife and daughter, makes a business trip to Italy, where, in a church that had been a favorite of Elizabeth's, he meets a young Italian girl who is the image of his dead wife. Like the James Stewart character in "Vertigo," Michael sets out to turn the Italian girl, Sandra (also Miss Bujold), into Elizabeth.
Logic is not essential in a film of this sort, yet Sandra is such a sensible girl that one wonders how she can participate so wholeheartedly in this scheme of conscious self-deception. Another problem is a cosmetic one. The film, from opening credits until the end, covers almost 30 years, but Mr. Robertson, who otherwise gives one of his best performances, doesn't appear to grow older by a day. He looks serenely ageless in the eerie way of someone made up by a mortician.
Miss Bujold, an extraordinarily intelligent actress as well as a beautiful one, also does not look her best, especially as the Italian girl. This is ironic since almost everything else in the film, shot in New Orleans and Florence by Vilmos Zsigmond, is seen through romanticizing eyes that deny all imperfections.
There is another problem that is difficult to discuss without giving away the plot. I'll say only that I'm not at all sure whether the fate that eventually catches up to Michael is the result of his young-man-on-the-make stinginess or of plot details I didn't catch.
Making his film debut in "Obsession" is John Lithgow, a fine New York actor, who plays Michael's best friend and business partner, a fellow of old New Orleans stock that represents the culture that Michael, and all others like him, are in the process of replacing.
With "Obsession" Mr. De Palma is moving into the big time. He's a very talented director and one must be glad for him, though I still prefer those films he made on shoe-strings ("Greetings," "Hi, Mom," "Sisters"), when he didn't hesitate to give a Bronx cheer to the Establishment that he now aspires to join.
The film has been rated PG. There is nothing terribly shocking by way of nudity, or rough language, but the kidnapping sequence might terrify small children.
Read more...
