Monday, April 24, 2017

Script review - "Obsession" by Brian De Palma and Paul Schrader (1976)(warning: spoilers)

Entertaining melodrama in the Hitchcock mode - in particular Vertigo (a film de Palma later revisited with Body Double). The New Orleans setting gives it extra novelty; it's about a property developer, Michael, whose wife and young daughter are kidnapped. An attempt to stiff the kidnappers out of money results in their deaths... and Michael remains obsessed by the case. Later he finds a woman who is the split image of his wife.

There's a fantastic twist here (spoilers) - the woman is his daughter. In the script father and daughter actually sleep together. The film feels as though it should end with Michael's death - I also feel the supporting characters apart from Lasalles could've been used more. There's this other woman in the story who looks as though she's going to do something but doesn't.

Like a lot of De Palma scripts I've read the structure is very sound and I enjoyed it a lot.

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