"I am Pádraic Súilleabháin. And I'm nice." Greetings and salutations, fuckers. My hyperfixation changes every two weeks, so don't expect a consistent theme in my posts. 🌲🍏⚪🌪🖤
a great tragedy of this world is that many things that are bad for you also look very sexy. smoking. riding a motorcycle. that crazy shit they did to saint sebastian
guy at an art museum standing in front of a completely innocuous and somewhat boring painting muttering “what does it mean? what does it all mean?” in an increasingly distressed tone
you hear him say “I don’t understand it, I can’t understand it” as he stumbles away from a very plain still life painting of wine and fruit with his head in his hands
INDE NAVARRETTE
"The fake answer that I love to give [for my childhood crush] is Channing Tatum in Step Up. But the real answer is Optimus Prime in Transformers. Specifically, obviously, the first one. There's a monologue that he has at the end of the movie that leads right into [a Linkin Park song]. I think that was my awakening."
I think the thing that is the most disturbing to me about Obsession is just how quickly it becomes totally clear that Bear not only never loved Nikki, but that he never even liked her.
In the little time we spend with Nikki before she becomes possessed “freaky” Nikki, Obsession goes to great lengths to establish Nikki as a person.
In just the first 15 minutes of the film, we learn that Nikki loves writing, she’s laid back, and that she cares very deeply for others. We see that she’s funny, she likes to gently tease her friends and joke around. She has ambition and wants to pursue her writing seriously. She has her own goals and thoughts and opinions.
She’s also characterized very well by her wardrobe, how she talks, her body language and expressions (courtesy of Inde Navarrette’s absolutely STUNNING and brilliant performance).
In a VERY short amount of time, the audience is given a VERY clear picture of Nikki’s personality and usual behavior.
Which makes her “transition” into “Freaky” Nikki all the more horrific when Bear makes his wish.
Because even if we give Bear some grace, and acknowledge that he couldn’t have known that the One Wish Willow would do what it did, and even if we treat his kissing her on the first night she comes over as morally grey (although in my opinion he absolutely did take advantage of the fragile mental state he believed her to be in), there is no way to excuse Bear blatantly ignoring that Nikki changes so drastically from the person Bear claims to be in love with.
After the wish, Nikki starts speaking differently and using a higher pitched voice, she starts dressing completely differently and wearing more traditionally “feminine” clothing. She suddenly drops her plan to quit working at the music store and pursue writing, she stops showing any care towards her other friends and the people in her life. She defers to Bear in every situation, with the only exception being any time Bear shows any sign of moving away from her emotionally (or physically).
After the wish, Nikki becomes a completely different person.
And Bear does not care or show any concern regarding this at all.
Everything that makes Nikki who she is, everything that makes Nikki, Nikki, is just gone after Bear uses the One Wish Willow.
And Bear couldn’t be happier.
We get a whole montage of Bear and “Nikki” as a “happy couple” hanging out together and ignoring everyone around them.
It’s not until Bear starts seeing actual consequences to his wish, such as “Nikki” causing a scene on their date or feeding his dead cat to him, that he begins to worry about her behavior.
And even then—EVEN THEN!!!!—Bear STILL adamantly refuses to accept that Nikki is not behaving rationally or how she used to in any way. While he eventually acquiesces to canceling his wish, he first tries to just “alter” it to make it so Nikki still loves him, but is just less intense.
He would rather use “Nikki” to satisfy his own desires and ego.
If Bear loved Nikki, hell, if he even just LIKED her for who she is, he would be horrified by “freaky” Nikki. He would have recognized and acknowledge extremely early on in their relationship, that something was deeply wrong. He would know that the woman he was with was not Nikki.
But Bear would rather have a bootleg version of Nikki that he can feel validated by, than have an actual relationship of any kind with the real Nikki.
He does not love Nikki. He does not even like her.
He likes the idea of Nikki. He likes the image of Nikki that he’s constructed of her, the image of her that only exists in his head.
He likes the fantasy of what Nikki would provide to him emotionally and physically.
From the beginning of the film, Obsession shows us exactly who its villain is. Nothing that “Freaky” Nikki does horrifies me as much as Bear’s treatment of Nikki and his refusal to see her as an actual person with autonomy.
For me that’s the most disturbing element of Obsession. That the people you trust the most and care about may be so obsessed with the version of you they’ve created in their mind that they’ll actively ignore your personhood and autonomy.
God. Obsession is so fucking good. I love film. I love cinema. Thank you Inde Navarrette. Thank you Curry Barker. Film of the year, if god hates horror fans why do we keep winning.
the fact bear only tried to cancel his wish after being told he couldn’t alter it (and, seemingly, because he was uncertain about how real nikki’s love actually was) - instead of wanting to do that from the start, as soon as it was clear that something was wrong with nikki - makes me so, so devastated for her. it’s clear he was more concerned with what he was getting out of the wish, rather than the detrimental effect it was having. and like, everyone could tell something was up with nikki, it’s not as if it wasn’t clear. him hanging up the phone as soon as nikki is out on the line (screaming) is so symbolic of how he is completely ignoring how he is ruining her life throughout the film
i love that Obsession didn't do the "oh if you'd just asked her out she would've said yes" thing.
like that kind of "you didn't need magic, you could've gotten what you want the honest way" dramatic irony can be effective and i see why a lot of writers use it for "be careful what you wish for" plots like these, but i love that Obsession is like, "no. she doesn't like you like that. there is no version of this where you end up dating her, and you need to get over it."
and nikki clearly did value bear's friendship and care about him; if he'd been honest with her about his feelings, she probably would've tried to let him down easy and remain friends - but of course, it's unlikely that he would've been willing to remain friends. bear's both too cowardly to admit the truth to nikki (which would've prompted her to reject him outright and at least given him closure), and too obsessed with her to just quietly accept that it wasn't gonna happen (which would've let him maybe start to get over his crush and move on). he's both convinced they belong together and unwilling to be direct in doing something about it, and he doesn't get even the barest comfort of knowing the real nikki loved him all along. she didn't. she liked him, but she didn't love him. and he swapped her out for a version of her that "loves" him... but doesn't like him. and he still wanted to try and make that work, even knowing the real nikki was trapped and miserable inside the shell of her body, being used by the thing he willed into existence. the tragedy doesn't happen because what he wants is within reach and he doesn't realize it - the tragedy happens because what he wants is impossible, and he refuses to see that until it's too late.
One thing about Obsession (2026) that I enjoyed was that it almost asks you to feel empathy for the entity possessing Nikki as well as the real one. Like, obviously the things she's doing are horrific and fucked up, but I think the scene where Bear is asking her to "just be Nikki!" and she eventually just desperatly screams "I can't be Nikki!" does a really good job of showcasing the entity's inner feelings. She's been created with the sole purpose of loving this guy more than anyone else but no matter how perfect it is or how much he claims to love her, its not her that he loves, its Nikki. And any time she stops pretending to be Nikki, he reacts (albeit rightfully) with disgust and horror. She can't be Nikki because Nikki would never love Bear, and so Bear will never love her.
I watched Obsession (2026) for the first time yesterday and what is really getting to me, as someone who has had a growing interest for incels and nice guys, is how much Bear is loved by the people around him, especially women. When you listen to nice guys and especially incels online, the story they tell you, and that other poeple like to reiterate, is that the reason they are like that is that they are profoundly alone. They have no (supporting) family, no friends, no partners, they're completely isolated, they're social pariahs and that's why they struggle with romantic relationships: they're just too starved for affection and romanticism, so they act erratically, focusing on their needs rather than others' because they need love NOW.
And while I do understand that being socially isolated has terrible consequences for someone's ability to handle (all kind of) human relationships, I like how Bear is not like that. Bear doesn't get the "excuse" of being "so lonely, so misunderstood" he just had to get love in any way he could. Bear has love in his life. You wanna say Ian is a bad friend because he doesn't tell him he and Nikki are hooking up, fine. But look at Nikki and Sarah. Look at the group as a whole. Bear has a house, a job, he has Wednesday quiz night, karaoke even. He has Nikki call him to ask about his day, she shares her life news with him, she gets him to come to the bar hangout because she doesn't want him to be alone. Sarah comforts him after the loss of his cat, Nikki tells him he's the only she feels she can talk to about certain things. When everybody thinks Nikki has gone crazy, Ian and Sarah worry about him, how he is doing, if he is being taken advantage by Nikki. Sarah calls him to open the last college admissione letter.
Sure, Bear has clearly some personal issues: many deaths in the family, the pills. But everybody is his friend group (except Ian, who we don't much about) has similar issues: unstable lives and complicated relationships with parents.
Bear's sufffering is not unique, but he desperately want to feel like it is. Bear has a so many people caring about him througout the movie, he has no excuse, not a crumb of an excuse to act like the world is uniquely unfair to him and his heart. His existence is truly unremarkable: he is an average guy, with friends, a job, a decent social life. You can't pinpoint a detail througout the movie as some sort of "ah-ah! And that's why he's an instable nutjob". I think that's the beauty in the story: the stars didn't have to align for it to happen, it just took a guy who think you can be "entitled" to love.
I think this is very important. There's no excuse. There's no excuse in the movie for Bear's behaviour and mentality and there should be no excuse to put forward for the people in real life who share them. Bear is not a misunderstood, socially inept loner, he is an asshole. And at the end of the day, even if you could trace back the how and why an asshole became who they are, it wouldn't make them any less of an asshole and it wouldn't make any of their actions hurt less.
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theartofmadeline
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turnnoffyourmind
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