Secret Obsession: No thrill pill for the viewer

‘Secret Obsession’ the Netflix-thriller which stars Brenda Song and Mike Vogel is deeply flawed. The film suffers due to a predictable and unconvincing plot failing to keep the viewer engaged

Photo Courtesy: Social media
Photo Courtesy: Social media
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Biswadeep Ghosh

It is late at night. It is raining, too. Jennifer, a young woman (Brenda Song from The Social Network), is being followed by a stalker. In a state of absolute panic, she is hit by a car. That is the dramatic beginning of Secret Obsession, a thriller that has dropped on Netflix.

A good thriller is a film in which nothing is as it seems. The first problem with this made-for-TV film is that the trailer released some time ago had ended the suspense anyway. Even if the viewer hasn’t watched the trailer, the person won’t take long to understand that the villain of the piece is pretending to be Jennifer’s husband (Mike Vogel from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The woman’s accident has led to amnesia, the most convenient way of establishing why she cannot recognise the man.

Jennifer lands in a hospital after the accident. That is where the man introduces himself as her husband. The hospital authorities accept their relationship without seeking proper documents, which is rather strange. That nobody known to Jennifer searches for her while she is hospitalised isn’t convincing either. But then, that is the problem with Secret Obsession. The story about a woman and a man who is obsessed with her is deeply flawed.

Hollywood has a long history of stalker thrillers. There is nothing new about a sequence in which a person is in danger and the car refuses to start. Loss of memory after an accident is yet another familiar element that has been used to take the story forward earlier.


The viewer is hardly surprised when Jennifer starts doubting her so-called husband. In spite of having to use a walking stick after discharge from the hospital, she walks down the stairs and tries to seek information by checking his laptop when he is not at home. There is this another sequence in which he locks her inside the house when he goes out shopping. It is a possibility the viewer can guess easily.

Writer-director Peter Sullivan and co-writer Kraig Wenman seem to have forgotten that some originality in storytelling is a must. The end result is a big yawn.

The film has three main characters. The first is Jennifer, a character Song has played with conviction. Vogel overacts as the man who claims to be her husband. His manner of talking and body language are theatrical, and it seems as if he had been asked to remind the viewer repeatedly that his character is creepy.

The best performance in the film comes from Dennis Haysbert (Waiting to Exhale), who is seen as Detective Frank Page. Page senses there is something fishy, and he is desperate to solve the puzzle with his willpower and resolve. That Haysbert is lucky to act in most of the few well-written sequences the film has, aids his performance substantially.

Poor writing, the chief culprit here, fails to surprise the viewer. That’s a drawback no thriller can afford to have. Finally, the title. Secret Obsession is perhaps the most obvious title the film could have had. It seems to have been finalised in a hurry, telling us what we need not know before we start watching the film.

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