While I found this obliquely structured, sporadically unsettling, independent feature to be both fascinating, fitfully frustrating and in part, more than a little bit confusing, 'Obsessed' aka 'The Letter' ultimately proved to be an altogether engrossing, plainly ambitious, densely layered psychodrama that might well reward the more diligent, esoterically-minded movie fan. The tricky, ceaselessly claustrophobic narrative is primarily a doomy decent into the beleaguered existence of an emotionally disordered playwright, 'Martine' (Winona Ryder); her increasingly paranoid state given a disturbing verisimilitude with a bravura performance by the still adorably elfin film & TV icon, Winona Ryder. No doubt some may find the overtly 'stagy' dynamics of this demonstratively theatrical piece a little forced, illogical, or even alienating, but I enjoyed the pervasive strangeness maintained throughout, and the film's febrile sense of dramatic dislocation frequently reignited my waning interest in the profoundly insular travails of Ryder's uncomfortably fragile, noticeably desperate retreat from normality; her seemingly inexorable attraction to moody, taciturn hunk, James Franco's darkly ambivalent persona proving no less irresistible to me too! This patently wasn't to be a readily digestible time-waster, as there was a steely integrity to the work that continually rewarded my curiosity with a modicum of intrigue over the truly baffling nature of these quixotic characters wholly bizarre motivations, both on and off Winona's increasingly disordered stage! While there is, on occasion, the niggling sensation of enduring a film student's over-earnest graduation project, it was, perhaps, this undeniably charming naïveté that finally won me over, and either way, I'm always mustard keen to watch sophisticated, multifaceted dramas that aren't afraid to keep at least one of its myriad secrets to itself, thereby actively encouraging the viewer to formulate their own unique interpretations. And the inspired casting of the preternaturally empathic Winona as the luminous lead in this crepuscular, reality-warping, existential nightmare lessened the film's very own burgeoning identity crisis; as by creating such a fragmented, wilfully interior world, no matter how artfully presented, almost certainly engenders its own unique set of issues! (It cannot go unsaid that the truly odious DVD artwork and incongruous trailer are not at all representative of the film's far more subtle sensibilities.)
Review of The Letter
