Starring: Beyonce Knowles, Idris Elba, and Ali Larter

Rating: 3/5 stars

This film gives an accounting of what can happen when a person twists words meant one way to mean something entirely different.

Sharon (Knowles) and her husband (Elba) have just moved into a seemingly perfect home with their adorable toddler. He works as an up and coming asset manager and she is the stay at home mom looking to go back to school. It is an idyllic situation until a harmless encounter with a temp (Larter) from human resources and Derek Charles meet by chance in the elevator to his offices.

She manages to wrangle desk duty when his assistant is out with a bug. She is flirtatious and striving to impress. Once the sick assistant comes back, she strikes up a friendship with him to get any information she can about Derek Charles.

Derek seems to only have eyes for his wife, but a pretty smile and a few tears soon land him in a nightmare of a ride. There is a very over acted scene in the men's restroom by Larter in an attempt to get in Derek's pants. He fastidiously tries to put the temp off again and again. The next week, things escalate when she jumps in his car and tries to seduce Derek by wearing a rather skimpy outfit under a raincoat. This might have been a little more believable if they hadn't been in California where it is streaming sunshine through most of the movie.

He tries to maintain control of the situation, but inevitably it appears the young woman is not giving up. She shows up at a resort conference and this is where her true obsession comes to a head. She gives Derek what is to be presumed a date rape drug and waits for him in his hotel room. When he shows up, she takes advantage of the situation, while he is muttering no. The next day, she has him called out of the meeting posing as his wife. He rejects her yet again and she goes back to his hotel where she takes a prescription medication in an attempt to overdose and kill herself.

Up until this point Knowles has been a complacent sub-character who suddenly becomes the overly injured wife. The matter is blown way out of proportion and she sends Derek packing. The young temp takes a slight vacation from the scene as we see Knowles and Elba trying to understand what happened and rebuild their life together.

Knowles has just asked him back to the home, when the young temptress shows up and takes their child. The scenes of them discovering the toddler missing are lacking in emotion. It is a scattered and haphazard mess at best. Knowles at this point becomes a fire breathing dragon lady. It is understandable, but the switch from sweet complacent to kick butt is a little hard to swallow.

The remainder of the movie is the climax for which the whole thing had been set up. The ultimate cat fight scene of mama bear protecting her lair from the encroaching wolf. While the scenes here rivaled those of the Dynasty ladies in the water fountain, there wasn't much left to the imagination of how this was going to end up.

It does keep you interested with enough twists and turns between home and office. However, it is predictable with the one exception of the date rape drug scene. Men have traditionally gotten the bad rap for using this drug to gain what they want. The twist here is believably done because a man of Derek's size would not succumb to the effects as would a slighter framed person. He is very woozy, but still coherent enough to say no, which many females can't do when they have consumed this drug. The morning after he remembers nothing about them having sex.

Obsession takes many forms and can truly be dangerous. This movie brings that to light from the man being a victim pretty well. Not necessarily a must see, but if you want a little bit of a predictable thrill it's worth the rental.

 This article is copyright to lynnechandler on hubpages 2009.