Oh shit, the Dead Meat Podcast episode on Obsession came out a week ago. And this shit is longer than the movie itself, so you know they're really digging into it.
I'm hoping to hear a few things that I didn't already pick up on after my own watch or from the 3 weeks of ongoing twitter discourse.
Graessle has a great point that after trivia night, Nikki tells Bear that no one ever knows it when she likes a guy and she was essentially teeing Bear up to tell her how he feels even before she put him on the spot. The scene genuinely does read as if she was open to the idea and was disappointed that he chickened out. Which actually makes me stop for a moment. Did Nikki ever even learn what was going on? Did she know about the One Wish Willow at any point, or was she just left to piece everything together from context cues as the credits roll? I don't think she would have said "You've never been with me" unless she didn't know that Bear already knew. Does that mean Nikki spent the whole movie thinking she was possessed by something that was forcing her to seduce and emotionally abuse her sweet, shy, innocent friend? But also, there's actually no way Nikki didn't know Bear had a crush on her, right? This is something I first heard on Twitter, but it's possible Nikki only told Sarah she saw Bear as a brother because she knew Sarah liked him and she didn't want to be in Sarah's way. To be honest, the idea that Nikki did like Bear back and she just wanted him to have the confidence to tell her elevates the film for me. I feel like it adds a whole new layer of tragedy to what happens. Which is what Graessle and James said as soon as I unpaused the video. You know, I actually cried when I saw that interview with Inde Navarette saying she felt Nikki did have feelings for Bear. That was when I edited my Letterboxd review to have 5 stars and admitted that I did love the film in spite of it opening old wounds. Maybe those wounds needed to be opened in order for them to heal better.
Oh my god, James is saying exactly what I've been saying. Once you know that Ian has been sleeping with Nikki, it changes the entire context of everything he's said and done up to that point. "Nah bro, don't spill your heart out with sincerity and emotional vulnerability, you gotta neg her with that high school nickname she hates" type shit. Interrupting Bear and Nikki talking in the bar wasn't an accident. He was actively sabotaging Bear while being the type of toxic friend who brings out the worst in him. And fucking his crush behind his back.
Oh, now here's a fresh thought. The waitress in the opening scene is used as a living prop to workshop Bear's confession. To quote Graessle, "it doesn't matter who's on the other side of the table" because they're only imagining Bear's side of the conversation and concerned with "what Bear can say to get his desired outcome". Nikki's perspective is functionally irrelevant, as is the input of the waitress who got stuck humoring them. It's like a microcosm. She was literally a stand-in for Nikki.
Here's an idea I don't see a lot of people address, that Wish Nikki is her own conscious entity who the customer service outright tells Bear he has a moral obligation towards now that she exists. Her existence is torturous for the real Nikki, but she is still a person who didn't ask to be born and has feelings she cannot control. She cries because she can't "be Nikki" the way Bear wants. I did allude towards this in my big dissertation when I said Bear ended up in an impossible situation where the only available options were to A) be Wish Nikki's full-time caretaker and handler or B) kill himself to nullify the "contract". When you think about it, Nikki's own thoughts and feelings are once again not factored into the equation. This is why Sandy the cat is important to the plot, because like the waitress, Sandy is a microcosm representing how Nikki is treated. Bear is unable to responsibly care for his cat, his carelessness with the oxycotin is what leads to Sandy's death. That is a narrative cue to the audience that Bear is not able to care for Wish Nikki in the long run. And you definitely can tell Wish Nikki starts to resent Bear towards the end of the film because his wish led to such a horrible situation for everyone involved.
The problem with determining the exact moment Bear unambiguously becomes the villain is that you need to consider two gaps of logic that had to be bridged: the point at which Bear accepts that magic is real, and the point at which Bear knows his wish created a different person within Nikki that's controlling body against her will. And that second point clearly happens during his call to the customer service line. Which leads to a very uncomfortable question: does this mean Bear had plausible deniability during the sex scene? Obviously it was rape. That's not the question. The question is did he intend to? The impression I had gotten was that he realized the wish worked, so he knew Nikki was in love with him, which made him finally stop being so unsure of himself. During the call to customer service, he asks the rep if Nikki's love for him is real. Which suggests that prior to this point, Bear genuinely did not know the wish robbed Nikki of her ability to consent. But then again, I was actively trying to give Bear the benefit of the doubt for the sake of making a more interesting and thought-provoking tumblr post. The conclusion I came to after digesting the film for a few days is that it was saying sexual assault can still be committed by someone even if they consider themself a good person and didn't have actively malicious intentions. Bear's damning sin is that once he did know the truth, he didn't let it stop him. Like a true coward, he stuck his head in the sand because the lie was convenient for him.
