Everyone has an obsession. Whether it’s sports, movies, video games, and in some cases, people. We’ve seen this in many movies. We’ve seen individuals become deeply obsessed with another character in a movie, leading the obsessed character to stalk and kill among many other horrific things to stay close to the character they are obsessed with. Some of the best to ever do it include films like Fatal Attraction, The Invisible Man, Misery, Single White Female, and the aptly titled Obsession from Brian De Palma. However, not many in this genre are actually good films. The subgenre is sadly plagued with many run-of-the-mill and simply uninteresting movies that make the “stalker” subgenre one of the worst out there.
The latest movie to tackle this approach is The Admirer, which offers up a story about obsession, murder, embezzlement, secrets, and lies. So, is The Admirer a game-changer for the subgenre? Sadly, no. Although it is comparable to most films of its kind, it commits many of the same crimes as previous movies, and there just isn’t much here to draw audiences that aren’t already fans of even the lowest bar of these types of movies.
The Admirer is a pretty forgettable and predictable film about obsession and stalking. The writing is by the numbers, the cinematography isn’t particularly noticeable, the editing felt a little jarring, and some of the performances were shaky, with none of the actors sharing any chemistry on screen. All in all, the movie feels very muddled. Whilst there isn’t much going on in the plot, all the film’s issues just make for a hard to follow and unevenly paced flick. That being said, fans of the subgenre who can tolerate clichéd, Lifetime ‘Movie of the Week’ type variations may enjoy this.
Don’t Ghost People
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The Admirer follows Nancy Williams (Roxanne McKee), formerly plagued by a stalker who she previously ghosted. However, the stalking stopped once her fiancé was tragically murdered well over a year ago. Now, after she has made progress in her grief and started dating other people, her stalker is back to once again ruin her life. She must figure out who her stalker is before she or someone she loves receives the same tragic fate as her fiancé.
Message of the day — don’t ghost people.
The plot in itself is basic but intriguing enough. A good-faith and well-designed whodunit is always a guarantee to keep audiences hooked. But as we have seen countless times before, you have to do it right. And sadly, The Admirer falls short of this. Don’t get us wrong, the mystery appeals to that base instinct we all have; humans are enamored with discovering secrets, which will keep certain viewers locked in to the film. However, the movie’s final reveal is both predictable and underwhelming. The red herrings are just not believable and the smaller twists they chuck at you during the movie just don’t work.
Related: The 17 Most Underrated Psychological Thrillers Ever Made
An Unsatisfying Journey
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The Admirer just isn’t all that admirable. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie, you could already call out who the stalker is. But you may feel compelled to keep watching in order to determine that you were right. That said, the journey to get there is a long and uninteresting road, even for a 90-minute movie.
There isn’t much that really goes on to keep you hooked other than some generic steamy scenes, some investigating, and the stalker finding ways to destroy Nancy’s life. These include planting text messages on characters’ phones, hiding bras in Nancy’s purse in order to accuse her partner of cheating on her, or even playing her “sex-tape” at work during an important presentation.
There are moments in the movie, however, where the stalker actually saves Nancy. Whether it’s from sleeping with a married man who she thought was single, or even from a secretively abusive relationship, which isn’t confirmed, but Nancy’s partner did seem to have a few anger issues. There are moments where you do weirdly root for the stalker to a degree.
Generic Genre Tropes
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As previously mentioned, The Admirer pretty much follows the stalker subgenre rule book to a tea. If you sat down right this moment, and wrote out the generic obsession/stalker movie from front to back, it would most likely result in a movie exactly like The Admirer.
The movie is full of plenty of eye roll worthy moments, as well as some “steamy” scenes that just don’t feel earned or warranted. On top of that, the film is plagued with many unworthy scenes of tension, and unbelievably over-the-top final act. Again, for those who love this type of movie and have nothing wrong with the tropes of stalker movies, this movie is for you. But for casual audiences, you may want to steer away from this unoriginal stalker film that delves into every cliché in the book.
Related: 20 Movies That Pushed the Boundaries of Censorship
Underutilized Gimmicks
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The Admirer isn’t all bad however, and does offer up some pretty interesting gimmicks, which sadly, the movie doesn’t delve into. For example, Nancy’s house is awesome. It’s fitted with voice activated lights and music, and has a pretty sweet design plan to it, a wonderful space we wished the film utilized more often beyond creepily turning on music randomly, making the lights flicker and most sinister of all, turning the thermostat on the water to 120 Farenheit. These moments feel lifted from a haunted house film, not a grounded stalker movie.
It could have worked if we perhaps saw a masked figure hide in her house, watch over while she slept, or even see them move things and stand creepily in pure daylight behind Nancy in an eerie shot. If this location and setting was used more often or for the whole movie in fact, it would have felt much more personal, far more terrifying and could have produce a stalker movie to really talk about.
From Film Rise, The Admirer is now available on demand through iTunes, Prime Video, and other services, and you can find more information at Film Rise.
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