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Obsessed
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Obsessed is a very engaging vehicle for Shannen Doherty of Beverly Hills 90210 fame, casting her in a role reminiscent of the heroine in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty For Me (1971). It is written by David Peckinpah, Sam Peckinpah's nephew. Doherty becomes wildly involved with a man forty years her senior (William Devane, doing his Jack Nicholson-like mannerisms). If the soft focus love scenes between these two aren't freaky enough for you, Shannen's subsequent description of their relationship as "spiritual" and "beyond sex" surely clinches the unnatural horror of it all. This woman, you see, is obsessed. In movie logic, this means that she wants by any means necessary to possess her "free spirit" of a guy, moving into his pad without asking, bothering him with phone messages day and night when she paranoiacally suspects infidelity, and eventually taking to highly demonstrative acts of vengeful passion when he tries to end the affair. It's a gripping tale – less for its psychological insight than for the fact that the crazy femme fatale is far more admirable than the dour daddy-substitute. And it makes for enjoyable repeat-viewings in the context of Doherty's subsequent, determinedly trashy career. © Adrian Martin September 1993 |
