"Obsession" and What it Says About Us

Spoilers ahead

The Internet does not normally almost universally agree that a movie is good. The Internet rarely agrees on anything. So, needless to say when I finally watched Obsession last night, I had high hopes that I was about to watch something amazing and original.

I have to say that it earned the hype.

First of all, the film was truly unsettling. The pacing was phenomenal, even though the story progressed to an ending that some could see coming. The horror and gore never felt excessive, but whenever the film decided to push a scene further, it landed hard. Rather than becoming gratuitous, those moments deepened the sense of unease. And, do I even have to say that the acting was absolute perfection?

There are many masterful aspects of the film. One that stood out to me the most is how the central theme of obsessive love can be understood. Many viewers would have an understanding of what it’s like to fall in love. It’s obsessive, it’s borderline unhealthy and insane, but it’s so intoxicating. All else falls away and the object of desire is the center of it all. But, the brain can’t keep this level of desire alive for an extended period of time (thank goodness). Normalcy returns and love deepens and changes form, or it falls away. That’s normal, that’s healthy. The story takes one of the most universal human experiences and quietly turns it on its head. Subtle, but effective. 

The Ancient Greeks recognized that love isn't a single emotion, but a collection of distinct relationships. Friendship, romance, family, playfulness, compassion, self-love, and enduring commitment each serve different roles in a healthy life. Obsession, by contrast, collapses those distinctions until one person is expected to fulfill them all. 

Take Nikki, for example. The film begins by showing us Nikki before the wish. She has big dreams.  She wants to write, she has aspirations to write THE romance book that explores defining love, and is going to quit her job to focus on it. She has friends, trivia night, work, and a good life. She is herself and her own independent person. While she might not have all the forms of love present that the viewer can see, she has love present in many ways. She exhibits these in friendship, in hooking up, compassion by helping an unhoused person, self through creativity, and playful in how she acts with friends. In other words, the love that she has in her life expands her world and makes it richer.

However, after the wish, this rich life and varied kind of love collapses. Her world shrinks down and she tries to find all of these things in one person, and what she desires most ends up making her sick and miserable, and she loses most everything else that once mattered to her.

One moment that illustrates this well was how after Bear made the wish, Ian told him that Nikki thought of him like her little brother (noting that the information was second-hand and Ian’s intentions are unclear, as he had been hooking up with Nikki for some time). However, right after the wish had taken effect, she acted like she had caught herself for a moment during an intimate moment with Bear, and started screaming. She seemed checked out during their romantic moments, and it did not appear like she wanted to be with him in that way. More disturbing was in the excerpt she read of the book she had written, with incestuous Hansel and Gretel. It points to their corrupted relationship, where she viewed Bear as a brother but was compelled to be with him anyway. Ironically, Nikki fulfills her dream. She writes about defining love, but it was through her corrupted, hijacked lens.

I think part of what makes this story so tragic was how Bear’s unrequited infatuation and obsession with Nikki created the whole situation to begin with. His imbalance is what begat her obsession with him, but it didn’t just precede Nikki’s obsession - it created the conditions for it. Had he said something and was honest with her when she asked if he had feelings for her, the whole situation would have likely been avoided. What makes Bear so unsettling is that the beginning of his journey isn't monstrous at all. It’s human and normal to feel lonely, and unrequited love is a unique torture. But, he is selfish and his passivity and refusal to act or speak up created the situation, and continued to make it so much worse as the film progressed. He not only wished for love, but also wished for Nikki’s loss of agency (indirectly), someone to love more than anything in the world. He wanted certainty. It’s a deeply human desire. We want guarantees that the people we love will stay, that our feelings will be returned, and that vulnerability will never end in rejection. But love has never offered those guarantees. That is a hard truth to accept for anyone. In a way, I wonder if the film is saying that action, speaking up, and being a better person can lead to a better life? Or, at least, better consequences?

On the topic of consequence, the theme of the consequences of imbalance changes shape slightly throughout the film, into how imbalance and toxicity bleeds out. When Bear’s friend, Ian, tries to warn Bear that something is not right with how Nikki is acting, it causes friction in their friendship, even when Bear does try to listen. Even though Ian’s intentions were uncertain at many points, he and other friends tried to be honest with Bear about how unhealthy their relationship looked. The theme was most evident at the party that Bear and Nikki went to at Ian’s house. Their relationship dynamic created immense discomfort and concern. Perhaps the most comical instance was how when Bear went back to the store that sold him the One Wish Willow, the clerk chastised him and told him to “not come in here with this toxic energy, especially this early.” While it was a moment of levity, I believe it was also pointed. Obsession, toxicity, and imbalance affect others, even outside of our immediate circle. People pick up on it, and it creates tension.

The one piece of the film that I haven’t quite solved for yet is the form of Nikki’s obsession. Was she possessed by an entity, or did the wish take a natural human tendency that already exists, and just magnify it? Was she in there still, and could she have consciously made other choices? It is ambiguous, and perhaps that is why the film is so unsettling. It doesn’t invent a new fear. There is no monster in the closet or something hunting us in the woods. It asks us to recognize emotions we all understand, like longing, loneliness, infatuation, and then quietly asks what happens when those emotions are never allowed to mature into something healthier. The answer isn't love. It is obsession. And obsession leaves consequences long after clarity returns.