Law is lost in adaptation
OBSESSION Running time: 3hrs Cast: Jude Law, Robert de Hoog, Chukwudi Iwuji, Aysha Kala, Halina Reijn, Gijs Scholten van Aschat Director: Ivo van Hove JUDE Law lets his pumped biceps and ripped torso do most of the heavy acting work in his first London stage role in four years, a debut collaboration with superstar Belgian director Ivo van Hove.
Obsession is based on Italian movie maestro Luchino Visconti’s 1943 feature debut Ossessione, which was itself an unauthorised version of James M Cain’s much-filmed 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
For such an erotically charged story, however, Obsession is also curiously lacking in emotional bite or sexual chemistry.
While this production is big on spectacle, it has little fresh to say about its elemental themes of love, lust and betrayal.
A classic proto-noir psychological thriller about an adulterous couple who commit murder in a misguided attempt to secure their future happiness, The Postman Always Rings Twice has timeless dramatic power. Presenting the play in Simon Stephens’ English translation, Van Hove and his writer Jan Peter Gerrits strip away the grimy neo-realist texture of Visconti’s film, relocating the story to a vaguely defined contemporary non-place. Gino (Law) is a wily, handsome drifter who stumbles into the roadside diner run by sexually frustrated trophy wife Hanna (Halina Reijn) and her older husband, boorish control freak Joseph (Gijs Scholten van Aschat).
The penniless Gino is ravenous for food, while Hanna is hungry on a more carnal level. In short order, flirtatious electricity turns to fullblooded fornication, which Van Hove stages as a vivid, superbly choreographed, quasi-dance number.
Initially suspicious, Joseph soon warms to Gino. But as the illicit affair heats up, the lovers are sucked into an increasingly destructive spiral. Gino sees the warning signs and tries to escape, but fate reunites him with Hanna.
As inevitably as Greek tragedy, they are finally driven to murder, only to turn against one another in an acrimonious frenzy of guilt and thwarted romantic idealism.
Law’s default acting style is a little too smirky and aloof to summon a kind of raw animal sensuality. He gives good torso, which will undoubtedly help fill seats, but he makes a much more enticing sex-god anti-hero when he keeps his mouth shut.
Van Hove and Gerrits seem to be strongly hinting that Gino’s lovehate tensions with Hanna are partly caused by closeted homosexuality, which is an interesting twist, but it does little to boost the lukewarm chemistry between the two leads. – Hollywood Reporter