Damage

Stephen Fleming, a British MP, meets Anna Barton, the fiancee of his son Martyn, and falls almost immediately into an obsessive affair. His career, his family, his son's life: none of it stops him. The moment Martyn sees them together, an accident ends everything. Louis Malle directed, from Josephine Hart's 1991 novel. Jeremy Irons plays Stephen, Juliette Binoche plays Anna and Miranda Richardson plays his wife Ingrid. The performance people talk about is Richardson's, above all her scene after her son's death. She won a BAFTA for it and was nominated for an Oscar. Roger Ebert gave it four stars and called it one of the most compelling films he had seen; Gene Siskel put it among the best of 1992. It took roughly 31 million dollars worldwide, 7.5 million of that in the US and Canada and 1.9 million pounds in the UK. The story was adapted as a Netflix limited series called Obsession in 2023, with Richard Armitage and Indira Varma, and the series was largely panned. Who it is for: viewers who like obsession told coldly, with nobody rescued. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to the number and intensity of the sex scenes. The film uses them often and without decoration.