Secret Obsession Netflix Movie Review

Secret Obsession (2019)

Watch Secret Obsession on Netflix
Written by: Kraig Wenman, Peter Sullivan
Directed by: Peter Sullivan
Starring: Brenda Song, Mike Vogel, Dennis Haysbert
Rated: TV-14
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Plot
A brutal attack leaves a young woman with amnesia. When her memories start coming back, she realizes she no longer knows who to trust, not even those closest to her.

Verdict
This is bad. It's like a very dark retelling of Overboard. It's a television episode stretched to feature length and it shows. From the boring story to the silly plot and flat dialog, every bit of this is sub par. The production value seems budget television level. Characters act incredibly stupid just to further the plot. Some of the issues aren't even difficult to fix.
Skip it.

Review
The most annoying part of this movie might be the score. It's annoying throughout this movie, always intrusive and blunt. It's scored to effectively announce loudly anytime danger is present.

This starts in media res with Jennifer fleeing an assailant. It has the typical horror movie trope where the assailant slowly walks after a character running full speed yet they can't escape. This scene's point is to provide an exciting opening, but it's just a bit silly. There are three witnesses that stumble upon Jennifer. They don't see her attacker who had to be just a few feet away and a few scenes later we're down to one witness who says no one else was there. At first I thought this was some nefarious plot point, but it ultimately seems that the writer just didn't keep track.

Jennifer has amnesia after the attack, but the reasons felt more believable with this setup than a lot of movies do. Even so I don't like the writing at all. I don't know if this is the most boring movie I've seen, but it is in the running.

The movie strongly indicates the man posing as her husband is hiding something. The movie could explore this interesting aspect where from Jennifer's point of view she has an intimate relationship with a stranger. They would have to get to know each other all over, but the movie avoids that completely.

At one point I was hoping this would be similar to The Game  or Rebirth, anything to make the plot more interesting.

Dennis Haysbert plays a detective and the way he breaks the case is laughable. It's pure plot contrivance. Jennifer got a tattoo of her last name's initial on her back. She's the only person that has that tattoo.

At this point I was curious about the antagonist's motive. Maybe Jennifer had some information, but know it turns out the antagonist is delusional. It's a very underwhelming reveal.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

Her attacker was a coworker who never met her. He had a crush on her and his plan was to go on a murder spree, kill her, and that would be the end. Luckily for him his plan was foiled and she got amnesia and he decided to play along. It's dumb.

Jennifer attempts escape multiple times and the antagonist believes her every time she tells him she won't try it again. Once I got to the end, the title made sense, but this movie is irritating it's so bad.