Obsession (2023)

Murphy, with dark, piercing eyes, a messy bob, and a perpetually forming pout, is the star of the show, and Her performance is one reason why Obsession, adapted by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Benji Walters from Josephine Hart’s 1991 novel Damage, is more than mere sordid spectacle. She brings high intensity, as does Armitage. ... Obsession pays admirable attention to craft, and this makes it a lot easier to take the whole thing seriously. It’s far more cinematic than it needs to be.

While the obsession is overdone (William, especially, is drenched in it like cloying duty-free aftershave), the sex itself, including what appears to be a beginner’s guide to bondage and submission, seems stilted. It’s like watching AI sex robots attempt to play strip Twister.

Neither the plot story – nor Hart’s original dialogue – map convincingly onto 2023. ... Obsession feels like a story that’s had the stuffing knocked out of it.

The leads do their best to sell the thin stuff they have been given.

A show that fundamentally misunderstands its own main attraction—hot, steamy sex!—by instead delivering some of the most tepid, lifeless sex scenes in recent memory. ... The premise of Obsession is as ludicrous as it is lurid.

Obsession wants to give viewers all the sexy with no story.

Just like Sex/Life before it, this is just another feeble attempt to appeal to our most base instincts and failing to deliver on a climax.