Review of Obsessed (2009) by Chads — 23 Apr 2009

Lisa(Ali Larter) covets what Sharon(Beyonce Knowles) has. Inside the black couple's home, we see a close-up of the white woman's hand touching their belongings with a sense of proprietorship.

The delusional siren brings into bed a champagne bottle and two flutes. To complete her fantasy of romance with Sharon's husband, she sprinkles rose petals on their marital bed. In John Singleton's "Rosewood", the impoverished Caucasians wonder aloud as to why the homeowning "Negroes" have pianos, and they don't.

While the catfight in "Obsessed" is terrific fun, the presence of rose petals(a partial signifier from the 1997 movie that told the story about a community of well-to-do ex-slaves) calls attention to the historicism that exists whenever people from both ethnic groups engage in violence.

Like the impoverished Caucasians in "Rosewood", Lisa has no qualms about taking what she feels is rightfully hers. "Obsessed" reverses the inroads that Sanaa Hanri's "Something New" made in normalizing the filmic image of upper-middle class blacks.

Instead of burning crosses, the only thing that burns in "Obsessed" is the "For Sale" sign which Sharon and her husband Derek(Idris Elbra), a successful corporate businessman, use as kindling for their fireplace, at the film's outset.

Since African-Americans are often confined to the margins of society on film, "Obsessed" unintentionally(to be fair) carries a latent racism in the fact that their historical nemesis(represented here by Lisa) attempts to take everything away from them, out of jealousy.

While her ancestors waged war with the ex-slaves, Lisa wages war with Sharon, so she too can make beautiful music, and not from just a mere piano, but with the piano player himself.