Obsession review: cringeworthy Netflix adaptation of Josephine Hart’s Damage
This four-part series has all the subtlety of a US soap opera
Josephine Hart’s 1991 novel Damage was the Fifty Shades of its day, “only much darker and much more elegantly written”, said Helen Brown in The Daily Telegraph. It was made into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche, and now Netflix has turned it into a four-part TV series – with “disappointingly cringeworthy” results.
Richard Armitage plays William, a brain surgeon who lives in a beautiful home with his “sexy barrister wife” (Indira Varma). At a party, however, he “locks eyes” with his son’s girlfriend Anna (Charlie Murphy) and “wordlessly inserts a rather small, grey cocktail olive into her open mouth”. And thus “the romp begins”. The two leads turn in “admirably committed performances”, but the series has all the subtlety of a US soap opera.
Anna and William’s affair is meant to be torrid and tempestuous, but it mainly looks like “a chore”, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. When they first get together “on the fabulous polished floor of a borrowed flat”, they clamp each other “like erotic Lego”. Later, “they sombrely copulate in toilets”, and rut “mechanically” in alleyways. Even when they dip their toes into bondage, it’s like watching “AI sex robots attempt to play strip Twister”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The “grunty shagging” is ultimately quite “depressing”, agreed Jessie Thompson in The Independent; the script lacks “insight”; there’s too much “foreboding string music”, and “the thinly drawn, two-dimensional characters leave the actors helplessly stranded”. It’s deeply unerotic, but sometimes unintentionally funny.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Kimpton Everly Hotel: the perfect base to explore Hollywood
The Week Recommends Escape the bustle of LA at this laidback bolthole
By Caroline Dolby Published
-
The best TV spy thrillers
The Week Recommends Brilliant espionage series, packed with plot twists to keep you hooked until the end
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Ukraine-Russia: are both sides readying for nuclear war?
Today's Big Question Putin changes doctrine to lower threshold for atomic weapons after Ukraine strikes with Western missiles
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Ed Park's 6 favorite works about self reflection and human connection
Feature The Pulitzer Prize finalist recommends works by Jason Rekulak, Gillian Linden, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 fantastic homes in Columbus, Ohio
Feature Featuring a 1915 redbrick Victorian in German Village and a modern farmhouse in Woodland Park
By The Week Staff Published
-
Drawing the Italian Renaissance: a 'relentlessly impressive' exhibition
The Week Recommends Show at the King's Gallery features an 'enormous cache' of works by the likes of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael
By The Week UK Published
-
Niall Williams shares his favourite books
The Week Recommends The Irish novelist chooses works by Charles Dickens, Seamus Heaney and Wendell Berry
By The Week UK Published
-
Patriot: Alexei Navalny's memoir is as 'compelling as it is painful'
The Week Recommends The anti-corruption campaigner's harrowing book was published posthumously after his death in a remote Arctic prison
By The Week UK Published
-
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: a 'magical' show with 'an electrifying emotional charge'
The Week Recommends The 'vivacious' Fitzgerald adaptation has a 'shimmering, soaring' score
By The Week UK Published
-
Bird: Andrea Arnold's 'strange, beguiling and quietly moving' drama
The Week Recommends Barry Keoghan stars in 'fearless' film combining social and magical realism
By The Week UK Published
-
TV to watch in November, from 'Dune: Prophecy' to 'A Man on the Inside'
The Week Recommends A new comedy from 'The Good Place' creator, a prequel to 'Dune' and the conclusion of one of America's most popular shows
By Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, The Week US Published