Can you make a sexual intrigue film without any sex or intrigue? No. Need proof? See the boring, 100-minute prelude to a PG-13 girl fight called ""Obsessed.""
Full disclosure here folks: If learning the riveting conclusion of a half-baked ""Fatal Attraction"" rip-off is going to ruin your day, you might want to flip over to the comics.
Derek (Idris Elba, ""The Office"") is happily married to Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles), the ""love of his life"" who he apparently knocked up at a Christmas party and decided to marry. When Lisa, the new temp in the office (Ali Larter, ""Heroes"") construes the kindness of Charles Miner, er, Derek, as an undying promise of love and devotion, she begins flinging herself at him, jumping him at a company party and popping into his car in lingerie.
Larter redeems the film at some level by playing ""crazy"" well. The phony, over-rehearsed delivery of her lines that makes her characters on ""Heroes"" as believable as cardboard cutouts of superheroes gives ""Lisa the Temp"" an air of self-delusion. Less plausible are the apparent superspy skills that this crazy stalker possesses-—Jedi mind tricks and advanced computer hacking skills, all in the name of whacked out love.
Other actors seem to never have a chance to succeed in the film. Elba, who plays an exceptional corporate asshole on ""The Office,"" plays Derek as a family man who wouldn't harm a fly. Why is he so nice in a film about temptation and sex? He never strays or shows any signs of temptation as this girl flings herself at him. It's like watching Ned Flanders try to fight off Edna Krabappel—never sexy, just uncomfortable and mildly amusing.
The film awkwardly attempts to reach to some higher-level issues within the plot. When Lisa crashes the company retreat, she roofies Derek's drink and jumps him when he passes out in his hotel room. The next morning, Derek is uncertain how to tell his co-workers what happened to him—a gender reversal that explores the psychology of victims of sexual assault. But the execution is so superficial that it almost seems more like an insult to real victims than any kind of insightful commentary.
Technically, the movie is unremarkable. The cinematography makes the film look like a PSA about sexual harassment in the workplace. The soundtrack is filled with Beyoncé tunes and ominous ""something awful is going to happen to this happy family"" riffs on a synthesizer.
Since Beyoncé was on set to record the soundtrack for the film, they just put her in the film as the diligent but feisty wife. As usual, she should stick to her beautiful melodies, not awkward ad libs like ""Come get me, bitch!""
This line occurs as Beyoncé lures Lisa over a weak spot in the floor of the attic during the penultimate battle for their man. The floor crumbles and Lisa falls to the shiny, expensive-looking coffee table below, but not before trying take out one third of Destiny's Child as she falls. After the three-story fall, she opens her eye menacingly, like Chuckie coming back to life.
The audience laughs. I don't think that's what the filmmakers were going for.
A chandelier then falls from the weakened ceiling above, finally crushing Lisa's undying love for Derek. Just as in ""Heroes,"" the best part of Ali Larter's work in the film is when she is finally dead.
There, I just saved all of you $9.
Grade: D-
