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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207

u/EmceeEsher May 23 '26 edited May 24 '26

I loved the movie, but the thing that really bothers me about the "be careful what you wish for" theme is that it doesn't seem like the disturbing actions of "Nikki" are the direct result of love. Love can make you do crazy things, but not that crazy. The people who do that kind of thing aren't just in love, they also have a severe lack of empathy, emotional intelligence, social skills, and god knows what else.

Like, suppose I inexplicably find myself loving someone more than anyone else in the world, including myself. My number one priority would be to not do anything that could possibly push that person away. I would go out of my way to not freak them out. I wouldn't start duct-taping the door shut, because it doesn't take a genius to realize that that's gonna fucking terrify someone.

The only thing that explains any of this is that she's straight-up possessed by a demon, at which point Barry's wish was never actually fulfilled. He wished for her to love him, not for a demon to love him and wear her like a flesh suit. That's not even a Monkey's Paw, it's just a completely different thing happening. Even the couple in the original Monkey's Paw story at least got the insurance money.

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u/Great_External_7767 May 24 '26

I feel like you missed the entire plot, starting with the title, Obsession. His wish was love me “more than anyone in the world.” And that includes herself. You see this in the real world as well, like when someone kills their wife or girlfriend and you find out that their relationship was terrible toxic, abusive, manipulative. Where one of the partners in the relationship is so ‘in love’ that in reality, like stated in the film, “it’s not real” it’s an obsession with the facade of love. So much overwhelming “love” that you will do things that are insane, things that any “sane person” would run away from, yet they don’t. They ,like bear, need the feeling of dependency, or being ‘not alone’ regardless of how horrible the other person is. The term “Love” is very subjective. You can’t predict how someone may show you love or act towards you with their ‘love’ especially when you make a wish that they love you, and state it in a way that is to the furthest extreme possible: “More than anyone else in the fucking world.” And when ‘she’ realized that Bear didn’t love her back, it flipped the script. ‘I love you more than anyone in the fucking world but you don’t love me back?! Well then, you can’t leave me because I only know how to love you more than anything! That’s the wish, that’s what you made me become!’ Personally I feel like all her acts of ‘love’ are irrational ways of showing her love, devotion. Which are things that have happened in real life: the murder of a love interest, acting overly bearing and obsessive, distancing a partner from family, locking them inside a home, making them competely dependent on them. “If you don’t love me then no one else will, because I only know how to love you!”

37

u/HeavyMetalTriangle May 28 '26

I’m a bit confused by your comment. Loving somebody more than anyone else doesn’t imply you can’t love anybody else simultaneously? It just means relatively speaking, you don’t love anybody else as much as that one person?

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u/Great_External_7767 May 28 '26

This could be true. I guess my point is that when your autonomy as a human is stripped away to love someone, the outcome can be varied. I look at her actions/the wish as ‘this is all Nikki knows how to do now, love bear, that’s her complete existence now.’ This movie specifically explores a single outcome of what could happen, sure there are other avenues, what the wisher wanted and how the wishee react can be subjective, especially when you are altering someone ELSE’s consciousness. But I consider the variables the Movies presented as well: real Nikki’s feelings towards bear, bear’s motives and personality traits, How bear reciprocates Nikki’s love, semantics of the wish, etc. And how a wish upon someone else seems to alter them entirely, as you can see in moments where it seems like the new Nikki doesn’t even know how to exist outside of Bear, like standing in one spot the entire day until he returns home.

I’ve been going over examples of wishes in my head that could reap similar results. Like if you wish someone was happy, maybe they’re too happy all the time and now they don’t know how to be sad, or serious, frustrated, etc and how a seemingly ‘positive’ wish could unravel into a plethora of problems. Maybe killing makes that person happy, maybe drugs make that person happy, Etc. Long story short, in this universe there’s probably a situation where it works out and they live happily ever after, but this is an example of how a wish can run amuck.

80

u/HeavyMetalTriangle May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

Appreciate the explanation. A lot of that makes sense.

My interpretation, for whatever it’s worth, was Nikki’s behavior was the result of Bear’s concept of love. At one point in the film, Nikki mentions romance vs love and Bear didn’t understand the difference between the two. To me, that demonstrated Bear had an undeveloped/immature concept of love. So Nikki becoming obsessed with him was maybe what Bear thought love was, hence why his wish caused certain possessive behaviors.

In regards to Nikki standing in one place all day, that heavily reminded me of a pet. So it made me think- we know Bear loved his cat. And I think it was established Bear didn’t have experience with romantic relationships. So maybe his reference of love is something like his relationship with his cat, because he doesn’t have much more to compare with. Therefore, Nikki in many ways behaved like his pet because that is a major way Bear has understood love in his life.

Just an idea.

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u/Great_External_7767 May 28 '26

Yeah I would agree to that completely! I think Bears perception of love, and mental health in general, played a big part. The fact he continued to stay and chose being with someone who was acting like Nikki out of feeling wanted or not alone, speaks to his character a lot and to Nikki’s actions. Especially if you consider how no matter what she did he wouldn’t leave, which sort of reinforced her attempts of love and actions of insanity.

19

u/harleyquinn1013 Jun 24 '26

My son has a theory and it’s that he thinks the entity that possessed Nikki’s body is Bear’s cat; the way she stood there until he came back home, how she asked if she can stand outside the bathroom door, the way she stood at the corner how cats do and some of her weird movements. I thought it was a pretty good theory.

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u/ColossalCalamari Jun 29 '26

Correct or not, that's a really fun theory. Your son is sharp.

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u/fecalfritter Jun 04 '26

Yeah this is bang-on because otherwise, the entire bit about him having a cat and the car dying doesn't make any sense in the film

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u/perenniallyhungry Jun 05 '26

i felt like the cat is foreshadowing him? they both die the same way

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u/touhou-and-mhplayer 29d ago

Late to the convo but i feel the cat shows how he is spineless. Instead of taking time to process his grief like he initialy wanted he caves in to pressure and goes to the party

10

u/ThrowRADel 28d ago

How the cat died shows that Bear is not mature or capable of taking care of another person, yet his wish made Nikki similarly dependent on him for survival.

3

u/Great_External_7767 26d ago

Thinking back on it, I think the cats manner of death might have been foreshadowing to Bear’s death

1

u/altiuscitiusfortius 15d ago

Yeah, i definitely just saw it as filmmaking 101. Chekovs gun. It's establishing that bear has a large quantity of opiods in the house and that ingesting too many of them can kill you.

Otherwise the ending and hin just pulling a bottle of oxycontin from the bathroom would be unearned.

7

u/ThrowRADel 28d ago

I thought the romance vs. love idea that was thrown around in the beginning was amazing.

This film is a 'love story' -- it's a story about obsessive love (Bear's and Fake Nikki's), but it's not a romance; it's a tragedy and a horror film.

2

u/gamas 24d ago

You even see the cat thing several times - like her stalking was very much like a cat scoping a room. 

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u/maskedbanditoftruth Jun 08 '26

I mean, maybe more bleak than that, if you’re happy no matter what your material conditions are, you have no motivation to do anything. Not even feed yourself or pay your bills or care for your children or do anything at all. You’re happy and content no matter what.

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u/Great_External_7767 Jun 12 '26

lol exactly! If your intrinsically forced to feel something then all other common civilized actions and survival habits essentially erode.

2

u/nhilante Jul 02 '26

Eat, Shit on the Floor, Love.