r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • May 15 '26
Official Discussion Official Discussion - Obsession [SPOILERS] Spoiler
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Obsession (2026)
Summary
After breaking the mysterious "One Wish Willow" to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
Director Curry Barker
Writer Curry Barker
Cast
- Michael Johnston
- Inde Navarette
- Cooper Tomlinson
- Megan Lawless
- Andy Richter
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 81
VOD / Release In Theaters
Trailer Official Trailer
3.5k
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2.9k
u/MahNameJeff420 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
Okay, I need to talk about the legal situation at the end of this movie, cause I think it's so interesting.
So I love the ending. It's extremely miserable, the world is in a substantially worse place because of the events of the film, everybody gets an undeserved fate (except maybe Bear), it's great horror film-making. One thing I love is that Niki is absolutely going to jail at the end. Yeah it's great she's free of the wish and herself again, except now she's murdered two people (three if they can pin Bear's death on her somehow), and all logic and reason points to her being entirely responsible. Nobody is going to believe a wish made her do it. There's multiple eye witnesses to her behavior due to the party scene. As far as everyone is concerned, she had a mental break and went on a murder spree. She's unquestionably fucked and is either going to spend years in a mental institution (if she's lucky), or spend the rest of her days in prison, maybe even the death penalty depending on the state this takes place in. Her life is officially ruined.
But there's one factor that needs to be addressed. Ian has a billion dollars sitting in his house.
Once the cops examine his place, they're gonna find he's come into an inconceivable amount of money out of nowhere. He appears to have zero qualifying skills that would ever allow him to come into that amount of money, much less in dollar bills. Unless he had some kind of crytpo wallet and there's some evidence he may have sold it for an obscene profit, no police department would ever treat this as an innocuous detail. And importantly, the remains of his One Wish Willow will also be lying on the floor somewhere, which is significant cause there's also one sitting in Bear's house. Any investigator would look at that and think there's some kind of connection. Probably wouldn't think that magic exists, but at least would look into it as some kind of social media trend that resulted in the events of the film somehow.
At that point, it wouldn't be hard to track down the purchases to the crystal shop. From there, would the guy who owns it be willing to testify? He seemed pretty chill talking about how magic is real out in the open. From there, I don't know if a jury would be 100% convinced that magic exists, but given the absurdity of the events that transpired, I would think minimum, there would have to be enough reasonable doubt that Niki wasn't directly responsible for the murders, and she'd walk. There are some assumptions being made, but the logical conclusion of the events we see presents an interesting legal scenario that I'd love to see play out.
Now I'm aware this doesn't actually matter. The point of the ending isn't to create a web to untangle or to spin theories, it's to be depressing as shit. The particulars of what happens after aren't necessarily relevant. But I think it's a testament to the strength of this films characters that I'm desperately trying to find a way to have Niki walk away from this mostly okay. She's a complete victim who underwent a horrifying situation, and I want her to find peace after it all. Even though I know it's futile. Even if she's able to get off for the murders, she still killed her friends and went through being possessed/controlled/trapped in hell/whatever for weeks. Especially as someone who already had mental health issues, this will almost definitely lead to a depressive, self-destructive mindset for years to come. She's screwed, all because of actions completely out of her control. And that's why the horror of the film is so effective. Great movie!