Having a Nightmare
Written: Jun 29 '09 (Updated Jun 29 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Opening and closing sequences.
Cons: If you miss the forest for the trees, it will seem lackluster.
The Bottom Line: Be careful what you wish for. You may get it. "I Have a Dream" in the Twilight Zone.
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| topreviewerman's Full Review: Obsessed |
If Obsessed were a nature hike, the emphasis would be on the hike. If you managed to look out through the gap in the woods, the view would strike you speechless. Otherwise it's just more of the same. We are so conditioned to a society where judgments are made according to skin color, and ambitious women hit a glass ceiling, that it's hard to imagine anything different. "Obsessed" gives us that chance, in which droll conflicts force us to think about our hoped for ideals that the characters live out effortlessly.
The opening scenes are extremely well done, in which successful (Black) businessman Derek Charles (Idris Elba) and his beautiful (Black) wife Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles) make foreplay while exploring their new spacious home before inaugurating it—"No 30 second nookie." Without actually seeing a sex scene, we are made acutely aware of the physical nature of their love. Of particular interest is the large mirror on the ceiling to reflect their activity. It plays a symbolic role in the transition to the next scene, an elevator on the way to the top of a big company.
Derek is riding that elevator and so is cute (White) temp Lisa (Ali Larter) whose questions establish his prominent position in the company. It is this complete casualness about a man of color being so high up that lets us know MLK's dream has arrived. Lisa has her own temp girl dreams—"A girl's gotta pay the rent." She conveniently drops her papers in the elevator which Derek helps pick up. This registers with her as encountering a man who knows how to love. I suppose a man can't go directly from making love to a woman in one space to helping another woman in another space without some tenderness being displayed. Lisa completely picks up on it.
Back to the mirror. Back to changing diapers then back to the office where Derek is handing paper and pen to his new (temp) assistant Lisa. A guy gets married, he gets tamed. A single girl who's been disappointed in men picks up on it. It's pretty subtle, but it's there.
While Derek is a Black man completely at home in corporate America—seeing himself as CEO by forty and retired to his own island by fifty—his wife Sharon's (approved) plan is while he "works hard, I take care of the baby, then I get my degree." No prejudice, no glass ceiling, perfect society. Derek hasn't been completely whitenized as he retains his Black moves with the women, passed on by heredity to his infant son, and Sharon retains enough femininity to nurture her young for the required time. Perfect society.
Enter the temp—"temptress." Lisa is at that age in the scheme of things for nurturing a family, but she had a falling out with a boyfriend somewhere along the way, and now all the good men have been taken. "A lot of the single gals see the workplace as their hunting ground, and I think this one has got you in her cross hairs," says Derek's coworker. Now we're back to that magic mirror where one's demeanor at home gets mirrored in the workplace and vice versa. Derek retains just enough Black culture to keep him from becoming a sanitized White man in Black skin—let's call him a dirty martini man in a one martini office—, and Lisa with an unerring huntress's instinct brings out just enough of that dirty Black in him to allow her to go in for the kill—"One of us has to take charge, and since you won't, it has to be me." Back to that magic mirror. In this perfect society a woman breaks through that glass ceiling, how? By taking charge in a situation where she can and a man won't. This ideal gets mirrored in her personal life and we got ourselves a situation.
It helps in understanding the movie to realize the very different situations of Derek and Lisa. Derek is a rising star in a big business, where not even a hint of impropriety is allowed. That he married his former assistant Sharon gives him a "history," so he cannot get into any "He said; she said" scenario, not to mention a wife who's not going to understand any of it. In terms of, say, investment portfolios, his would be ultra-conservative for the no-risk status it must maintain. If MLK allows a character assessment, then Derek is in a place where he can't lodge any official complaints. Lisa, on the other hand, is a temp. She's there and gone and has no commitment to the place. Furthermore, she's in and out so quick, she has to strike while the iron is hot. Hers would be the high risk portfolio, grabbing what she can for the big score. She's efficient and doesn't threaten Derek's position but uses her advantage to control it, as would any CEO-material person in the business world.
I'm just showing you where to squint out through the trees to get a glimpse of the forest. I'm not here going to criticize our collective ideals which have gone terribly wrong. Depending on your point of view, you might think of a lot of different ways to set them right again. From my own perspective as a (sometimes) preacher, I would say that in a society that emphasizes the ideal of acquisition in face of competition, we need to take particular care to avoid covetousness: (Ex. 20:17) "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's … wife, … nor any thing that is thy neighbour's." Lisa was coveting Sharon's husband. But Derek himself was not a good sport with Lisa when she caught him fair and square under the mistletoe, and he wouldn't give her the chaste kiss she requested—"If you don't, people are really gonna think something's going on." That refusal led to an escalation. It is true that the kissing under the mistletoe custom is European in origin, and Derek is African-American, but when in Rome, ….
Then there are the confrontations between Sharon and Lisa. For professional assistants, they sure had trouble getting each other's names straight, almost like Sharon wanted Lisa eliminated as Derek's assistant, and Lisa wanted Sharon eliminated as Derek's wife. I'm thinking along the lines of Lord Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: "I do believe though I have found them not, that there may be words which are things." If they can't eliminate each other by words, then they'll probably have to do it by force. You would think that the wife and mother would hold the high moral ground, but in this case Lisa shows herself to be good with the kid and a potential asset as a wife. Strangely, in this idealized world, they are given moral parity for their fight.
You know I can't tell you the winner in advance. In the heat of the moment, you're just going to have to bet by instinct, or however else you do it. MLK's wonderful speech reduced to a cat fight. What is this world coming to? But if I were a betting man, I'd bet on the glass ceiling.
In Oregon where I live we have a lot of beautiful scenery and trails running through lush forests. Somebody has carefully marked maps for places where one may stand and look out through the trees to spy beautiful vistas. If you think you want to avoid "Obsessed" for the controversial material I've laid out, you needn't worry. A person gets agitated, he moves around, and he loses his view. All he'll see is a bunch of lousy trees around him. This movie is such a charmer that were it not for lack of oomph in the individual scenes, I'd have given it five stars. Someone seeing it without recognizing a broader perspective would likely give it closer to one star. It's a matter of accepting the moral universe the movie portrays, one where, say, the Decalogue's general prohibition against coveting had been suspended in order for class envy to produce a society in which a career climbing Black man is judged entirely by his character, not by his skin color, and a pretty but lonely woman up against her biological clock can take charge of a situation without being called a bad word. I'm not saying people won't argue about these subjects if they feel so inclined, only that the movie itself isn't inflammatory.
Of course, I liked the movie seeing it by myself, but it may not be one for a shared experience if you know where to look and the rest don't. Or if you're not inclined to think deep thoughts, there's others that will give you a fright or a laugh without having to look for it. For me it was more on the order of I'm having a nightmare than I have a dream I want to give a speech about.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Serious Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Plot
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Epinions.com ID:
topreviewerman
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Member: Earl Gosnell
Location: Eugene, OR
Reviews written: 78
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
BSEE, U. of Cincinnati. Ordained minister, United Congregation of Friends. Poet Laureate, Longfellow, Colorado.
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