MYST #3 Obsessed (2009)

For another one of my MYST projects, I decided to watch the movie Obsessed (2009) directed by Steve Shill. The director Steve Shill I know from the television series ER that was on television form 1994 to 2009. My parents always watched this show and when I was old enough, I started to watch it too. This was my favorite television show and I would watch it religiously. Steve Shill is also a director of the popular television series, Law and Order.

This movie is about a family with a husband, Derek (Idris Elba), and wife, Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles), and their little baby. They just moved into a new house and are very excited to get started with their new lives. When Derek goes to work there is a new temporary worker, Lisa (Ali Larter) who begins to start drama. The plot thickens as Lisa spreads rumors and starts to be “obsessed” with Derek.

While watching Obsessed, I noticed a few things that stuck out to me.  The camera angles were one thing that I noticed repeatedly. There were many different camera angles in this movie. One that I noticed that was used a lot was the camera angles that are straight on and from the shoulders up. This was used a lot when the characters were talking to each other.  Another shot I noticed was the close up angles. These angles were used when the scenes were suspenseful and creepy.

The lighting of this movie was not anything special. Most of the lighting was natural light. A lot of the scenes took place using natural sunlight to light up the rooms. There was one scene that took place at night that I thought was different. Since it was a night scene, most of the screen was dark. But to have light in this scene to see what was happening, a blue tinted light was used. It looked fake to me because it was so blue, but I think they just needed to have some light in the scene so the audience was able to see what was happening.

There was one scene that I saw composition in. When Derek and Sharon were talking in Derek’s office, Lisa walks in on their conversation. Derek is sitting on the left side of the screen and Sharon is sitting on the right side in the foreground. There is an empty space between them in the background until Lisa walks in the door and she stands right between them. I thought that was cool how they planned that out to have it look like Lisa was splitting them down the middle.

Overall, I thought this movie was so creepy. Lisa goes beyond what is normal and it is scary. I really liked Beyoncé in this movie. This was the first movie that I had seen her in. I would give this movie 3 stars out of 5. It was action packed but really creepy the things Lisa did to try and be with Derek.