Sunday Theatre | TV Highlights
Compulsion
Sunday 7 September, 8.30pm
Tonight's Sunday Theatre: Compulsion (at 8.30pm on TV ONE) is a modern tale of love, sex, revenge, control, obsession and murder, inspired by the Jacobean tragedy of Middleton and Rowley, wherein the arranged marriage of a rich industrialist’s daughter ignites a series of twisted relationships, which leave the protagonists possessed by love and hate.
Anjika Indrani (Parminder Nagra, ER, Bend It Like Beckham) is a modern girl with the world at her feet. Having finished her degree at Cambridge and in a happy relationship with fellow graduate Alex (Ben Aldridge), she returns in triumph for a lavish celebratory party at her father's house in London - only to find he intends for his daughter to marry Hardik (Sargon Yelda, Saddam's Tribe), the son of a business associate. Anjika rails against it but her father, Satvick (Vincent Ebrahim, The Kumars At No 42 ), is relentless.
Help is offered from an unlikely corner. Don Flowers (Ray Winstone, Vincent, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull) is her father's chauffeur, bagman and general factotum (as well as occasional cocaine supplier to her brother). Having always mistrusted and despised Flowers, Anjika is dismissive of his offer to solve her problem, especially when she hears the price - Flowers wants to spend a night with her. But when it becomes clear her father will not budge, she reluctantly agrees.
Flowers slips a sedative in Hardik's drink; by the time he wakes up he has been caught with a large quantity of drugs. The plan works: Hardik is disgraced and an apologetic Satvik drops the whole idea of the arranged marriage; he even starts to look kindly on Alex. But Anjika's troubles are not over - Flowers is demanding payment.
Gathering her courage and, unknown to Alex, she goes through with it and sleeps with Flowers, and to her astonishment, finds she wants more. Through Flowers she has found a new awakening, and now nothing in her 'ordinary' life seems the same.
Anjika and Flowers embark in secret on an obsessive relationship. Inevitably her relationships with friends, family and particularly her boyfriend Alex, begin to fall apart but Anjika finds she is almost addicted to Flowers. She tries to break it off with him but finds she cannot; meanwhile the wronged Hardik is starting to figure out the truth.
Obsession leads to murder and Anjika comes to realise there is only one way out.
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Rudebaker
Following the murder of Hardik, Flowers disposed of the body in a shallow grave. The affair between Flowers and Anjika continued, with Anjika wrestling within herself about what she had become - a lust-filled party to murder, with suppressed feelings for Flowers - against the dream she had of a future with her fiance/boyfriend.
After managing to evade being found out on several occasions, including drunkenly texting Flowers as he drove her and her friend home from a party, and being confronted about it by her fiance/boyfriend, and prompted by the discovery of Hardik's body, Anjika makes the decision to end the affair in brutal fashion.
After her parents have left the house for a night out, Flowers returns expecting to enjoy another session of "heavy petting"... However, Anjika had previously stowed a knife under a pillow with the intention of stabbing Flowers. As they get "down to business", she takes hold of the knife, but Flowers sees it knife before she can act.
A tense scene ensues. Anjika explains to Flowers that she had intended to kill him and claim rape in order to rid her of him and avoid being found out. Flowers professes his love for her, and begs her to look within herself and acknowledge that she feels the same, that they can run away together and live happily. Anjika bluntly refuses, saying she could never love a "fat old mad man".
Clearly heartbroken, Flowers places the knife back in her hand, and as he forcefully engages in some more "heavy petting", he grabs her hand and and stabs himself in the abdomen repeatedly. Anjika gets a taste for it and ups the ante. Flowers lies dead on the bed as she calls the police to report that she has been raped but has killed the perpetrator.
The programme ends with the newly happily married Anjika and partner hopping into the same car that her and Flowers spent so much time in and driving away. The final shot focusses on her face, as she looks wistfully out the window.
Michelle McCulloch
me too! missed the end!!! please let me know what happened too
Rida
It was such an amazing drama, so many secrets, so much suspense, i was glued to the TV, until the man of the house thought Batman Begins is better then Compulsion, I watched it until the murder of Hardik, what happens at the end? I really want to know...can someone please tell me