Hell hath no fury like a mentally unstable, office temp scorned.

More than 20 years after Glenn Close boiled Michael Douglas’ bunny, another sexually aggressive, blonde vixen sinks her polished nails into a happily married man in Obsessed.

Only here, with it being the morally upright 21st century, the husband rejects the amorous advances but suffers nonetheless.

British television director Steven Shill, who jumpstarted his career on EastEnders, Casualty and The Bill, makes his feature film debut with a script by David Loughery that plunders merrily from Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.

Were it not for the casting of Beyonce Knowles (also credited as an executive producer) as the wife who decides to fight for her man, literally, rather than lose him, this schlock probably would have headed straight to DVD.

An opening montage of Derek Charles (Idris Elba), beautiful wife Sharon (Knowles) and young son Kyle moving into their new home handily signposts the entire finale with lingering shots of locations and dangerously placed furniture.

Derek is a recently promoted, executive vice president at Gage Bendix, who is poised to land the biggest account in the company’s history.

Everyone loves him including his boss Joe Gage (Bruce McGill), skirt-chasing colleague Ben (Jerry O’Connell) and stereotypically gay personal assistant Patrick (Matthew Humphreys), who will disclose all of the office gossip over a couple of Cosmopolitans after work.

Trouble comes a-slinking into the building in the form of secretary Lisa (Ali Larter), who wears a killer pair of black and red heels, just like a certain carnivorous spider.

‘She’s a new temp,’ Derek tells his friend.

‘I think you mean temp-tress!’ swoons Ben.

Lisa quickly sets her sights on Derek and refuses to take no for an answer, taking her pursuit of her boss to dangerous extremes.

Obsessed is a generic thriller, enlivened by a hysterical final act, which sees Knowles’ full-time mother metamorphose into a snarling lioness, hungry for a showdown.

‘You better do something about this woman…

or I will!’ she snarls to Detective Reyes (Christine Lahti), the token cop assigned to protective the couple, who is just as clueless as the rest of the two-dimensional characters, allowing Lisa to wreak havoc.

When Larter isn’t rubbing herself up against her male co-star or parading around in the office car park in her skimpy underwear, she doesn’t wildly overplay her home wrecker’s psychosis, leaving the loud theatrics to Knowles.

A largely ineffectual Elba, whose character is apparently a titan of industry, shows surprisingly little common sense under pressure and leaves the women to sort it out amongst themselves in the most dignified way possible: a protracted cat fight complete with hair-pulling, kicks to the face and Beyonce promising, ‘I’m gonna wipe the floor with you…

who’s screaming now?’ Us, with laughter.

• Release Date: Friday 29 May 2009
• Certificate: 12A
• Runtime: 108mins

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