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Obsession, review: Netflix's latest smutfest has all the subtlety of an American soap opera

Charlie Murphy and Richard Armitage star in Netflix's steamy drama - Ana Blumenkron/Netflix
Charlie Murphy and Richard Armitage star in Netflix's steamy drama - Ana Blumenkron/Netflix

"Kneel, and I’ll give myself to you,” commands the heroine of Netflix’s latest smutfest, Obsession. The polished parquet towards which poor Richard Armitage’s bare buttocks are then shown descending doesn’t look awfully comfy. 

But then, nothing sits quite right about this 21st-century adaptation of Josephine Hart’s 1991 bestseller, Damage. Older readers will remember the book (and subsequent film starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche) as the Fifty Shades du jour – only darker and much more elegantly written. It told the taboo-busting tale of a 50 year old doctor-turned-politician called William who risked everything for an all consuming, sado-masochistic affair with his son’s enigmatic fiancée, Anna. 

The Irish author – whose three siblings all died before she turned 18 – used the story to interrogate the ways in which trauma affects love and sexuality. Anna had been psychologically scarred by shocking events in her childhood. “Damaged people are dangerous,” she warned her lover. “They know they can survive.” But this new version – chopped awkwardly into four short episodes – opens with all the subtlety of an American daytime soap opera. 

No longer the remote, middle-ranking success of Hart’s original, Armitage’s William is a flashily successful brain surgeon. We meet him in his high-tech operating theatre as he completes the groundbreaking separation of conjoined twins, making headlines around the UK before slipping home to be seduced by his brilliant and sexy barrister wife (Indira Varma).

Once we’ve established this alpha couple have a beautiful home (and her father owns a stately pile in the country where they spend weekends with their beautiful grown-up children), we’re whisked off to a work party where William locks eyes with Anna (Charlie Murphy). In a comically cringeworthy scene he wordlessly inserts a rather small, grey cocktail olive into her open mouth. And the romps begin. 

Murphy plays Anna, a young woman caught up in a forbidden affair with a married surgeon - Netflix
Murphy plays Anna, a young woman caught up in a forbidden affair with a married surgeon - Netflix

The desperate Armitage (who first set hearts aflutter in BBC One’s 2004 adaptation of North & South) and mysterious Murphy both turn in admirably committed performances. They strip straight faced and keep the power balance between the lovers see-sawing. “Hurt me,” she whispers. “Thank you.” But neither the plot story – nor Hart’s original dialogue – map convincingly onto 2023. A fact the filmmakers acknowledge by styling the entire show in mid 20th-century creams, browns and greens (I must admit I lusted after much of the rich mahogany furniture) and soaking the soundtrack in vintage soul. 

Hart was born in 1946 and her book has a pre-1960s tone. Her William is a lonely man, trapped by rigid social expectations. He’s religious too, tortured by his “evil soul” and at one point comparing his prone paramour to Christ on the cross. Like many men of the era, he doesn’t have an especially intimate relationship with his wife and children and finds a deeper (if more destructive) connection with Anna. 

Whereas we’re meant to believe Armitage’s William has a “really close” modern family. He goes out to the pub with his son and the pair discuss their feelings. We should feel the greater jeopardy of his betrayal, but we don’t. In place of William’s inner monologue, we’re given long shots in which he pounds away at an exercise bike and copulates with a hotel cushion in a scene from which the hospitality industry may never fully recover. Rather like that poor cushion, Obsession feels like a story that’s had the stuffing knocked out of it.