You know you’re in trouble when a movie called Obsessed leaves you feeling emotionally detached. This 2002 made-for-TV thriller, directed by a visibly bored John Badham, wants to crawl under your skin, but ends up tripping over its own clichés and face-planting into the lukewarm bathtub of Lifetime Network mediocrity. This isn’t obsession — it’s mild annoyance wrapped in a beige trench coat.
This Obsessed (not to be confused with the 2009 Beyoncé film where someone actually does get thrown through a glass table) is a psychological thriller in the same way a soggy fortune cookie is a psychological evaluation. Badham — who once gave us sweaty disco angst and Cold War computer panic — now directs like he’s waiting for lunch and hoping no one notices.
Let’s unwrap this Lifetime-branded ball of soggy tension, shall we?
The Premise: Stalk Me Softly
Jenna Elfman — yes, Dharma & Greg’s Jenna Elfman — stars as Ellena Roberts, a woman with glossy hair, vague trauma, and the emotional stability of a Jenga tower in an earthquake. She’s all smiles and soft focus until she locks eyes with Dr. David Stillman (played by Sam Robards), a stoic, vaguely competent psychiatrist who makes the critical mistake of trying to help her. In her world, “Thank you for the session” translates to “Let’s move in together, have twins, and fake my own death to get your attention.”
Ellena becomes obsessed with David. Not in the exciting, bunny-boiling way (Fatal Attraction, we salute you), but in a “keeps showing up and making weird toast” kind of way. Her version of terror involves sitting outside his house in a turtleneck, crying quietly, and stealing his mail like she’s working part-time for the USPS.
The thriller quickly devolves into the slow, sad unraveling of a man being mildly inconvenienced by a woman who treats restraining orders like love notes.
Jenna Elfman: Dharma Gone Dark
Elfman is trying here, you can tell. She’s stretching, reaching, pushing those expressive sitcom eyes into the realm of psychosexual menace. But the script gives her nothing to work with. Her character isn’t a layered portrait of mental illness or obsession — she’s a plot device with lipstick. We’re told she’s unstable, dangerous, cunning. What we see is a woman who gets clingy after three sessions of therapy and shops at the “lunatic lite” section of the villain store.
When she finally starts her descent into real madness — forging documents, gaslighting spouses, playing the “surprise, I faked my pregnancy” card — it’s played with all the dramatic weight of a poorly written soap opera. You don’t fear her. You want to change the channel and check in on Judge Judy.
Sam Robards: The Therapist with the Emotional Range of Oatmeal
Robards plays Dr. David Stillman like he’s waiting for his next dental appointment. He’s supposed to be the calm center of the storm, the good man caught in a dangerous woman’s web. Instead, he comes off like a substitute teacher who just discovered someone keyed his car but doesn’t want to deal with the paperwork.
David spends most of the film reacting to increasingly bizarre behavior with the same expression you’d wear if someone coughed near you in line at the pharmacy — mildly annoyed but too polite to say anything. As his life crumbles — marriage strained, career endangered — he maintains the emotional flatline of a coma patient in a tailored sweater.
There’s no heat. No fear. No anger. Just a sense that he’d rather be somewhere else, probably in a better movie.
The Supporting Cast: Underwritten and Underwhelming
The film generously pads itself with minor characters that exist purely to be lied to, manipulated, or stand around wringing their hands. David’s wife, played by Tracey Needham, is a walking red flag detector who spends most of the movie in permanent suspicion mode, like she’s married to a used car with a shady past.
Then there’s the boss, the best friend, the cop who says “There’s not much we can do without proof” (classic thriller bingo). Not a single one of them gets to be a person. They’re narrative props shoved around like mannequins at a therapy seminar.
The Direction: Badham on Auto-Pilot
John Badham used to light the screen on fire. In Obsessed, he directs like he’s trying not to wake a sleeping baby. Scenes are framed with all the intensity of a Hallmark holiday movie. Suspense builds to… commercial breaks. Dramatic reveals are accompanied by soft lighting and music that sounds like it was lifted from a “Relaxing Rainfall for Cats” CD.
Even the stalking scenes — which should feel claustrophobic or invasive — are shot like product demos for local security companies. Oh no, she’s in the house? Better get ADT.
There’s no visual language here. Just medium shots, close-ups, and the occasional slow pan that screams, “We’re on a budget, and that lunch cart smells amazing.”
The Script: Clichés and Court Orders
The dialogue is a buffet of Lifetime leftovers:
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“You don’t know what she’s capable of!”
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“She said she was pregnant with your child!”
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“I trusted you, David!”
There’s no subtext, no nuance — just characters blurting out whatever the plot requires like they’re being prompted by a cue card-wielding hostage taker.
Worse, the film treats mental illness like a plot twist. Ellena isn’t portrayed as a complex character — she’s a storm in a wig, existing solely to ruin a man’s life because… she can’t cope with reality? Trauma? Daddy issues? The movie can’t decide, so it gives up and just has her show up at odd hours with that trademark Crazy Lady Eyeliner™.
The Ending: Restraining Order Theater
The climax, if you can call it that, involves a confrontation where Ellena’s lies are exposed, everyone gets slightly flustered, and David’s life returns to normal like nothing happened. No real reckoning. No real consequences. Just a fade-out and a score that implies “Well, we all learned something today.”
Spoiler: We didn’t.
Final Verdict: 1.5 out of 5 sad stalker selfies
Obsessed is a thriller that forgot the thrill. It’s paint-by-numbers tension with a plot that trips over its own feet and lands in a lukewarm puddle of reheated genre tropes. Jenna Elfman gives it her best unhinged eyes, but the script gives her nothing to do with them. Sam Robards may as well have been replaced by a mildly concerned fern.
Watch it only if you’ve got wine, bad decisions to make, and a high tolerance for dramatic whispering. Otherwise, block this number. You’ve seen this call before.
