Gypsy, the Naomi Watts Netflix saga on Netflix now, is another strange career choice for talented director Sam Taylor-Johnson. Some of Taylor-Johnson's sensitivity of her 2009 feature Nowhere Boy is in there, but also a hell of a lot of material from her risible Fifty Shades of Grey.

Prepare yourself, then, for plenty of misguided, cringe-worthy, slow-motion, 'my desires have taken control of my body and I must yell instructions at you in my ugliest voice whilst balanced precariously on top of you' action shots, of the kind that made you vomit into your popcorn when Christian Grey was doing his thing. This feels like a bad Fifty Shades of Grey sequel, and the world already has one too many of those.

The good news, is that nothing, ever, could be quite as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey. The first big improvement is that Naomi Watts is in it, and she's so interesting that if she was reading the tube stops out over the sound-system in the London Underground you'd be too fascinated to ever get off the train.

Best of all, this time the psychopathic sex-machine is a troubled, highly minipulative woman, which makes for a vaguely more interesting protagonist than a sexually monstrous man looking to force women into submission with his enormous penis. Also, Watts is a therapist, which gives her conceivable insight into people's vulnerabilities. It's one of the secrets that made The Fall such a good thriller. Picture a psychopath who understands people and uses their desires, and their trust, against them – it's a good premise.

In Gypsy, apparently happily married Jean (Watts) 'has it all'. She's a successful therapist, a working mum in a beautiful suburban house. Michael (Billy Crudup) is her handsome lawyer-husband. She does have some issues, though, including a strained relationship with her mother (Blythe Danner), difficulty coming to terms with her non-gender-conforming daughter, and a storms of jealousy triggered by the relationship between Michael and his assistant.

So, naturally, Jean throws herself into her work, which means some serious meddling in her patient's lives, meeting (and sometimes having sex with) their ex-girlfriends or daughters. She conceives of an alter-ego to allow her to do such things: Diane, who’s a sexy freelance writer of political op-eds. When she's Diane, anything is possible. Just don't ask for the pin number to her phone.

It's very slow, and has some questionable acting. But Watts is spectacular. And it's worth watching for the tension and the weirdry, if you can get past all the sex.