silvana | peruvian | not even a girl anymore (like, any pronouns, confused mess) | 20 | I use @fountainpenchess as main now | studyblr: daydream-studyblr | sharon carter is perfect
Obsession posting on main but it really is incredible how well the whole thing is set up just in the first few minutes. The first shot is a POV from a woman's perspective as Bear talks at us and tells us his feelings. It cuts occasionally to the girl thinking this is cute but is clearly a little uncomfortable, only to learn that this person is not Nikki, but just some poor waitress who was on her break and who they presumably kinda roped into this. They don't even listen to her thoughts on the matter, start talking exclusively to each other, and then they just thank her and tell her she can go now and her entire break was apparently used up on their confession practice. Just kind of using women for an imagined scenario and not wondering what she might think about it even in the first five minutes. Incredible stuff.
Some thoughts I have on Obsession that I haven't yet seen discussed too much in the tags (or I have, but I just want to express them in my own words):
While it's somewhat played up for comedic purposes, the scenes in which Bear asks Not Nikki to stop doing something and she just goes "Okay! :D" stick out to me so much. She was very willing to hear him out when he complained about her behavior (at least sometimes) but it was never going to be enough anyway. When he was telling her that hiding in the corner and watching him sleep made him uncomfortable, she seemed genuinely worried about having made him feel bad, something he never once did for her or the real Nikki (made even more heartbreaking by the "I can be anything you want me to be!" line)
A lot of people are focusing on how Bear first asks to alter his wish and only asks to cancel it once he's told it can't be altered (understandably, it's a great and very important scene), but do not forget that after he buys more One Wish Willows, the first thing he tries to do is wish for Nikki to "only love him as a friend." Even when he's trying to revert things back to "normal" he still feels entitled to having her in his life. And at first I thought "well that's still not good but it's a little better" but then I thought about it for more than five seconds and no, that's not a little better, because after everything he put her through she would never want to have anything to do with him ever again. To try to ask for her to still be in his life is also extremely selfish of him
Still on the previous point, when he asks Ian to wish for him to have never made a wish. There's a lot to say about this scene, but one of the things that sticks out to me is that phrasing. Don't wish for Nikki to have her autonomy back, just make a wish that will make me feel like I fixed my mistake and might turn things back to how they were before my wish (aka, with Nikki still liking me, even if just as a friend)
One more thing about that scene, when he tells Ian that "he can be with Nikki". Of course he says that he "didn't mean it that way", and I sort of believe him, but it's impossible to ignore that he immediately thinks bringing up Ian's attraction to Nikki will make him agree to go along with his plan, the same way his own attraction to Nikki made him make his wish
Maybe this is just me, but when he's in the car with Sarah and he questions her on whether she thinks he should be with someone "like you?", he doesn't seem upset like I assume someone would be if they're in a committed relationship and another person suddenly suggests they should be with them instead. He seems very open to the idea, despite never once having been shown to have feelings for Sarah (in fact at the beginning of the movie he outright tells Nikki he doesn't like her like that), like he just wants to be loved by a woman and now that a "normal" one is showing interest in him he's very willing to abandon Not Nikki despite literally wishing for her, just because she's not exactly what he hoped for and is causing him problems
This is more so just praising Inde Navarrette's acting skills, and I know the point is that Not Nikki is the exact opposite of Nikki, but one notable difference between the two is their crying, and now that I think about it their screaming too. Not Nikki cries and screams in a sort of childish way, and it reminds me of the way some men want their girlfriends to act, like a child that needs them for comfort (maybe minus the screaming). It doesn't work with Bear, it comes off as a bit of a tantrum and just annoys and freaks him out, but despite obviously being how she really feels, with the fact that he literally wished her into existence, I can't help but feel that even the way she expresses pain is geared towards making him like her. But Nikki screams like a regular, horrified adult woman. When she cries in the final scene, there's no high-pitched whining to it, just pure horror and despair. Man I hope Inde Navarrette gets tons of awards for her performance
I really want to rewatch this movie, it's been 24 hours and I can't stop thinking about it
Sarah being tied up and naked, legs tied open, and a shell of herself, is what Freaky Nikki believes what Bear likes because he is using Nikki without her consent/ she isn’t there.
Nikki threatens to shoot herself in the vagina and actually pulls it out of there and limps. Because he cares about having sex with her, not her as a human being. It also emphasizes that the demon associates her vagina with violence bc of Bear’s SA on nikki
Sarah being tied up and naked, legs tied open, and a shell of herself, is what Freaky Nikki believes what Bear likes because he is using Nikki without her consent/ she isn’t there.
Nikki threatens to shoot herself in the vagina and actually pulls it out of there and limps. Because he cares about having sex with her, not her as a human being. It also emphasizes that the demon associates her vagina with violence bc of Bear’s SA on nikki
one of the things i admire most about obsession is the deliberate denial of any kind of optimistic ending, as well as the method by which that is executed. i’m thinking, specifically, of how the musical cues are utilized to pull multiple bait-and-switches on the audience: the way the music swells when bear is explaining the wish to ian and asking for his help; when bear puts the gun in his mouth; and when he takes the oxycodone.
obviously, if ian wishes away bear’s initial wish, that’s a happy ending! if bear dies in the bathroom and we cut to black, the audience can hold onto the hope that the wish breaking allows nikki to go back to her life before!
but those endings, especially the latter, would be dishonest. i appreciate that the film makes us sit in nikki’s anguish instead, bc i appreciate that it understands that she was equally affected by this, if not more so! an ending that bleak is honest to the concept and to the consequences inherent to the concept and i think it shows a great deal of respect for nikki. it’s an acknowledgement that nikki experienced something deeply violating and now has to somehow learn how to cope with it.
LOVEEEE wish!nikki being faceless. her face being backlit or her entire body being shadowed in darkness. wearing clothes that are completely removed from her style before the wish. having a higher pitched voice than she did before. not being able to smile the same. it’s not just that nikki’s face hidden in shadow, everything that made her HER has also been covered up with something else. wish!nikki doesn’t have a face of her own, she just has what bear wants projected onto her.
the thing about obsession re: the cat sandwich, is that the common interpretation I've been seeing is that its an instance of real Nikki's anger manifesting through the entity, but honestly I saw it more as an instance of the entity not understanding human conventions, and having a "cannibalism/consumption as a metaphor for love" moment. Like I genuinely could imagine the entity's thought process as:
Bear loves the cat -> consumption is one of the ultimate acts of love. by eating the cat, its essence lives inside him. -> he will love me for this wonderful gift I've given him :)
it sort of reminds me of Where the Wild Things Are, when the monsters beg the protagonist to stay with them. Please don't go. I'll eat you whole. I love you so.
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.
this is a moment in the original script that I wish they'd kept in the final version of obsession. the absolute disgusting way that real nikki appearing just becomes routine for bear and he completely ignores her in order to keep her. it's so horrifying the way her torment turns into something he hardly acknowledges
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
That moment where Nikki tells Bear that she's writing a love story that isn't a romance, and he doesn't get it. Can't recognize the difference between the two things, and the way it dooms them all. ugh. UGH. NOBODY TOUCH ME
Hi everyone @anothermissfangirl - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
