CRAZY IN LUST (OBSESSION)

 © Netflix

We've gotten used over the years to various film and TV adaptations of novels by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen or F Scott Fitzgerald.

So why not remake a publishing sensation that's only a few decades old like 'Damage'?

Josephine Hart's 1991 erotic novel about an affair between a doctor turned politician and his son's girlfriend sold more than a million copies worldwide.

It was translated into 26 languages and a year later was turned into a movie of the same name by Louis Malle starring Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche and Miranda Richardson who earned a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA and a Golden Globe for her performance as a raging, wronged wife.

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Now 31 years later, the directors of 'Good Vibrations' and 'Ordinary Love' Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D'Sa and writers, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Benji Walters have turned Hart's novel into a four part Netflix miniseries.

Now called 'Obsession,' there are a few changes to the original's plot.

Richard Armitage's William Farrow is a respected surgeon but he hasn't crossed over into politics.

More significantly, there's an attempt to shift the focus of the story away from his perspective to his lover Anna, played by Charlie Murphy - especially towards the end of the miniseries.

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At the start of 'Obsession,' Farrow and his family are basking in the glory of his successful surgery on conjoined twins which has hit the news headlines.

Whisked away from hospital by his wife, Indira Varna's Ingrid to her father's country estate, the family intends to relax there and celebrate his recent achievements.

Their son Rish Shah's stem cell researcher Jay and daughter, Sonera Angel's Sally are also there, while Ingrid's father, Anil Goutum's successful barrister, Edward is throwing a party for his son in law.

Influential figures in Westminster are due to attend and could land him a plum advisory role on health policy.

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There's a lot of buzz too in the family around Jay's new girlfriend who Sally is able to glean is much older than him, is called Anna Barton and works in the UK Government's Foreign Office.

Attending Edward's party, Anna catches the eye of William in a packed room and there is an immediate sexual attraction.

She introduces herself to him at the bar.

They make the mutual connection to Jay but also flirt, with William popping an olive into her mouth (which is not a euphemism, by the way).

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Afterwards, William tries to phone Jay and is shocked and pleasantly surprised when Anna rings him instead.

The following day when Anna arrives for lunch with the Farrows at Edward's estate, both of them pretend they are meeting for the first time.

However their conversation and the subsequent meal bristles with sexual tension.

In the days that follow, their obsession turns into a full blown affair with elements of BDSM.

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Anna initially sets the rules of engagement but William isn't the kind of guy to stick to orders.

Their clandestine encounters  increasingly see them engage in sexual power games that begin to risk their affair being exposed.

Eventually both are rattled when William starts to receive texts warning him to call it off or risk a public shaming.

Will their cheating come to light?

And how devastating will its impact be on Jay and Ingrid?

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There's been a hell of a critical pile on on this side of the Atlantic against 'Obsession,' with some critics describing it as risible, soapy, a smutfest, silly, unsexy and crass.

The problem lies, though, not with the production values nor the cast but the script and particularly its overblown plot.

Hart's novel was in some ways a precursor to the '50 Shades of Grey' novels.

It collided with Paul Verhoeven's phenomenally successful erotic thriller 'Basic Instinct' with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone which showed there was an appetite among audiences at the time for stylised sexual movies.

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It's hard not to think of Verhoeven's film and Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' while watching Leyburn and Barros d'Sa's miniseries with its intrusive, melodramatic musical score by Anne Dudley.

But the series also tries to tap into the erotic charge and power games of movies like 'Last Tango in Paris,' 'Nine and A Half Weeks' and 'Jagged Edge' 

Unfortunately Hart's story and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Benji Walters' rendering of it in this miniseries just seems too over the top to really convince.

It's a rather joyless affair.

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Murphy and Armitage's characters are so tormented, they spend much of the time just looking miserable even in the throes of what's meant to be intense sexual passion.

Both actors' commitment to their roles is admirable but It's hard to feel much sympathy for characters as reckless as Anna and William.

The part of Ingrid is so low energy that it's difficult for Indira Varma to come within ten miles of the blistering rage of Miranda Richardson's Ingrid in Louis Malle's 1992 movie.

The same is true for Shah and Pippa Bennett-Warner who is handed a rather anaemic role as Anna's friend Peggy.

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Leyburn and D'Sa are talented directors and you can see them trying their best to breathe life into a rather limp script with the help of cinematographer Piers McGrail and his prying camera.

Sometimes McGrail's camera creeps along, surreptitiously capturing the action.

Each shot is exquisitely constructed and is perfectly lit.

But it's hard to care.

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You can dress a weak story up all you want but striking visuals still can't hide a show's flaws.

Unfortunately 'Obsession' flounders because you don't feel any sympathy with its central characters and their outlandish behaviour.

And while the attempt to eventually shift the narrative perspective to Anna is admirable, it seems a little too late to really matter.

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The miniseries manages to be more glum than Neil Jordan's 1999 movie version of Graham Greene's 'The End of the Affair' but not nearly as absorbing. 

With Paramount+ reviving 'Fatal Attraction' for a 2020s audience as a TV series and Apple TV+ planning to remake 'Presumed Innocent,' get ready for more erotic thriller reboots.

But if they feel as deflated as 'Obsession,' will those streamers be able to justify remaking them?

('Obsession' was made available for streaming on Netflix on April 13, 2023)