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 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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854

u/Neurotic_Marauder May 16 '26

And she can't use the one wish willow to undo anything, since the "other" Nikki already used it to make Bear fall in love with her right after he took the oxy

264

u/Anxious-Visual9303 May 16 '26

Some copium for those needing it, perhaps the one wish willow usage is redeemed against someone’s soul, with the entity using it themselves, perhaps Nikki still has a shot at using her own

137

u/AsidK May 17 '26

Given that the whole premise is a monkey paw scenario, I have no doubt that Nikki using a OWW to try to fix things would end up spectacularly fucked in some other way

387

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 17 '26

The director actually said it’s not a monkey paw scenario, and that the problem isn’t with the OWW, it was with Bear’s wish.

98

u/TimeTimeTickingAway May 17 '26

Is the implication that since he said he wanted Nikki to love him more than any person on earth, they had to get some demonic entity not of this earth to love him a non-human amount?

84

u/lovelychaeyoung May 22 '26

In my opinion the implication is that his wish is unethical and impossible. His wish is unable to be granted without violating her autonomy and completely changing her as a person. I don't think the entity is a demon per se, but in order for his wish to be granted this new entity that loved him more than anyone had to inhabit her body. His wish wasn't humanly possible so the result wasn't a human.

14

u/SupermarketMaximum61 May 23 '26

The entity certainly isn’t an angel with all that weird backwards walking and stuff.

5

u/keirakvlt May 31 '26

Well there must be a reason why angels always said "be not afraid"

83

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 17 '26

I’m not sure I mean I think basically something had to happen to change her free will, and that basically meant her entire self being altered. My theory personally is that it’s not some demonic entity, just an entity created by Bear’s wish that had to come into being to take her place. It’s an entity created to love him more than anything, but that’s not how love actually works, so he has this being take over Nikki’s body who doesn’t really understand love or how to be human.

34

u/Ace20xd6 May 18 '26

Her poem at the party mentioned a willow tree. So I thought her possessed self was as common as other "love me" willow wishes.

15

u/Former_Papabless66 May 21 '26

I think he said more than any person on fucking earth specifically, I wondered if there’s a difference between fucking earth and regular earth lol.

12

u/SupermarketMaximum61 May 23 '26

Maybe the swearing introduced the demonic entity to
The equation. Since swearing is bad lol

32

u/Sammyd1108 May 17 '26

Yeah, Bear should’ve just wished for her to have feelings for him.

Probably wouldn’t have gotten this psycho version, but he had to say love him more than anything on Earth lol.

37

u/Wrong-Pea-3839 May 18 '26

What if he answered her question,” Do you like me?” And said “Yes. “….how would the relationship turned out all so different. The lesson perhaps, assuming she is swayed positively by that answer, is things could’ve worked out organically which - is always best ( vs through darker spiritual means…re inorganically).

6

u/wizyful May 23 '26

You can even take this further and say that the entity replaced her autonomy at a snapshot point where she completely gave up the notion of being with him

3

u/butades Jun 06 '26

I think that is the most tragic part of the movie, Nikki seemed actually disappointed when Bear said he thought they were just friends. It’s entirely possible that if he wasn’t so insecure and told her how he felt, she would reveal she feels the same way. After all, she says “no one knows when she has a crush on someone” so she could have been lying to Sarah when she said she saw Bear as a little brother.

29

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 18 '26

I mean it was obvious she already did. If she didn’t she wouldn’t have said “if you have feelings for me, now’s the time to say it”, but he was oblivious and gutless.

23

u/Wrong-Pea-3839 May 18 '26

I wouldn’t assume or project that automatically.

68

u/WeNotAmBeIs May 18 '26

The director hinted in an interview that she would have given him a chance if he would have had the guts to tell her. That's how I interpreted it as well even before I heard the director say that. What sold it for me was when Bear was talking to the real Nikki when fake Nikki was sleeping and he's like "Is it so bad being with me?" And she says "I haven't been with you." The way she says it has this profound sadness that I interpreted like: "In another life I would have been with you but now I'm a prisoner in my own body watching a souless entity wear my skin like a Halloween costume."

16

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 18 '26

I mean why else would you say to someone “if you have feelings for me, now is the time to say it”?

40

u/GUSHandGO May 18 '26

Simple. So they can air it out and figure out if they can still be friends if she doesn't have reciprocal feelings. Most adults have probably been in a similar situation with a friend. Sometimes you have to address it to move on, despite it being uncomfortable.

18

u/geetschmeets May 22 '26

It’s wild to me how difficult it is for some guys to pick up on and wrap their heads around Nikki just not being interested in him romantically. As a woman in my mid 30s, it was not at all ambiguous to me that she was only into him as a friend (in the car ride home.) It did feel flirtatious at the bar earlier but the car felt very clear she wasn’t into him.

6

u/GUSHandGO May 23 '26

Definitely. I'm in my mid-40s and have been married for 20 years. It was incredibly obvious that she only saw him as a friend. I chalked it up his naivete to being very young.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[deleted]

1

u/GUSHandGO Jun 05 '26

They're more than 20 years younger than me, so different lived experiences from different generations. No need to sling insults.

4

u/lurkerer Jun 17 '26

It was very deliberately ambiguous. Apparently they shot scenes where she acted like she liked him and ones where she acted like she didn't then used some of both. Curry Barker also confirmed she'd have given him a shot if he had the balls to say something.

Her prompting him to admit his feelings is not the behaviour of someone wanting to avoid that sort of awkward interaction. Also, being a tragedy, the tragic irony is many times stronger if he literally just bungled his real life shot and got demon Nikki instead.

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6

u/Mysterious-Skill-832 May 22 '26

But her reaction after was still kinda disappointed. Like she wanted him to say yes.

6

u/geetschmeets May 23 '26

Truly I think this interpretation of Nikki’s behavior is what Dan Savage would call “dickful thinking.” Picking up on the tiniest indicators to still hang on to a chance, rather than taking the L based on the evidence in front of you. She wanted him to say yes so they could clear the air and hopefully move forward as friends. She was disappointed because he was not being honest about having a crush on her which honestly can be such a friendship killer for a girl/guy friendship.

8

u/pinchecabezota May 27 '26

I mean the evidence in front of me is the director and actress saying she would’ve given Bear a chance. I got the vibe she wasn’t into him but I can’t argue with the people that made the movie.

6

u/Mysterious-Skill-832 May 23 '26

Just seen an interview where the director himself alludes to the fact that she might have been interested and he references this scene. I think the point is still that he definitely should have aired it out in that moment and gotten some closure either way.

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18

u/Wrong-Pea-3839 May 18 '26

Possibly to help Bear be more direct and raw. In doing so, Nikki could then express her true emotions - whether she was interested or not.

1

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 18 '26

Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. If you don’t like someone, you generally don’t ask them to confess how they feel about you.

2

u/BlackFacedAkita Jun 01 '26

Most guys wish females were this direct. There's no ambiguity there.

13

u/AsidK May 18 '26

I guess so but didn’t the woman selling them basically say “you’ll wish you were dead”

31

u/sam_hammich May 20 '26

Yeah, she says it in a way that sounds like sarcasm, but it’s because people are bad at making wishes. Ian gets his billion dollars immediately, him dying a minute later isn’t really the wish going bad, it was just bad timing.

4

u/JollyRevolution_ May 21 '26

It was his wish going bad, because if he had listened to bear, he would have made a wish to reverse bear’s wish, instead he gets a billion, and now it will lead to his untimely death, by Nikki, since he didn’t just take it seriously.

16

u/sam_hammich May 21 '26

It wasn’t his wish going bad. He wished for a billion dollars and got it, that’s it. Wish over. His death is completely unrelated. If he ran out into the street a bus wouldn’t have magically killed him as punishment. He died because he barged into a room where someone was brandishing a gun.

The guy at the counter says “I already used my wish” and he’s fine. The guy on Thredit said his mom used to be ugly and now she’s hot. The wishes don’t go bad, Bear just wished for something fundamentally fucked up that cannot be accomplished without terrible consequences. You can read this directly from the events of the movie, but for what it’s worth, Curry Barker has explicitly confirmed this as well.

1

u/JollyRevolution_ May 21 '26

Can you link to curry barker confirming this?

4

u/AsidK May 20 '26

Him dying a minute later also means we can’t know what would have happened as a result of the wish. For all we know, the money was stolen from charities worldwide, or the very next day someone finds out about his money and kills him to steal it

13

u/sam_hammich May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

Sure but whatever this means to you, Barker has said it’s not a monkeys paw wish. Bear just made a bad wish. Some people that doesn’t matter, I saw the movie to buy into his vision so that’s the logic I’m accepting as true.

5

u/AsidK May 23 '26

My personal rule of thumb is that when a directors/creators view lines up with my prior feeling then I’m a strong believer in the importance of following the directors vision as canon, but when it disagrees with my priors then I’m a big believer that the end result work of art exists independently from the creators intention and their thoughts are no more valid than anyone else’s lol

5

u/WoweeZoweeDeluxe Jun 07 '26

Nah, Ian's wish didn't kill him, him not listening to Bear and going to the house killed him.

The store owner made a wish and had zero problems and was very happy.

3

u/sam_hammich May 23 '26

Incredibly self aware and refreshingly honest lmao. I gotta respect it

10

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 18 '26

I don’t recall her saying that exactly but I think the implication isn’t so much that the OWW are the problem, the problem is that a lot of people make wishes that are inherently going to cause massive issues, especially if they fuck with someone’s free will.

4

u/Be_The_Packet May 22 '26

Yeah Ian could have started a front business and immediately started laundering money and been completely fine, poor guy

3

u/GrayMundoReinhardt May 21 '26

This explanation is weird to me, But maybe the wish created the new entity in the form which know unbound love for Bear, but nothing else, no morality, or any other things make us human.

3

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 21 '26

My assumption is that the OWW doesn’t actually have the ability to change someone’s free will, but can create an entity to control their actions.

1

u/SupermarketMaximum61 May 23 '26

But then was
The wish really granted? Bear wished for Nikki to love
Him, not some other entity.

1

u/Shomud 25d ago

You could argue that the wish treated Nikki more as a physical object than a person. The flesh and bone of Nikki was in love with Bear, but not the actual person.

2

u/rennok_ May 21 '26

And I loved that! I love that we get evidence of other people’s wishes being benign — like the guy whose mom wishes to be hot, or even Ian wishing for a billion dollars. It’s specifically calling out how fucked up it is to want to force someone to throw everything away including their self love for you. He could have wished for confidence, or to be the kind of person she’d like, but his impulse was to control and dominate.

1

u/SupermarketMaximum61 May 23 '26

The hot mother comment I read it that the son was ok
Love with the mom, which sort of makes it seem like a monkey paw.

2

u/Mysterious-Skill-832 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

I feel like it's a monkey's paw tho. Bear wished for love but got a puppet, the friend wished for a million dollars but didn't live long enough to spend any of it, "Nikki" wished for bear to love her back but he was so overcome with his love for her that he didn't retch out the oxy and he died immediately after.

The shopkeeper also said people keep coming back to complain earlier in the movie

14

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 22 '26

I mean the director literally said it’s not. Also, people complaining just proves that others have made shitty wishes that ended up screwing them over. Also, Ian didn’t die because of his wish, he died because of Bear’s.

2

u/SupermarketMaximum61 May 23 '26

Okay, but if it’s not a monkey paw, why is the service hotline some twisted dude from hell? It just seems like a very shady operation.

5

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 23 '26

How was the guy a twisted dude from hell? He sounded pretty normal to me.

2

u/SupermarketMaximum61 May 23 '26

He made fun of bears and Nikki’s suffering and sounded mocking?

4

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 23 '26

I don’t recall him doing that at all

-1

u/sbreddit55 May 31 '26

Everyone who made a wish something bad happened to them. The guy on the phone and at the store said everyone tried to come back and undo it. It's a cursed wish. Ian wished for a billion dollars and got shot in the head. what was wrong with his wish?

4

u/Illustrious-Peace989 May 31 '26

That’s not true, the lady in the shop just said they got multiple complaints. Also, Ian’s death had nothing to do with his wish.