Obsession
If “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has taught me anything, it’s that love spells are dangerous, and men who invoke them are playing with fire. Curry Barker has made that the entire idea behind his horror drama, and it’s funny seeing different reactions. I’m a bit late to the game, so I’ve had some of it spoiled for me, but not enough to not feel like I wasn’t run through a gauntlet by the film, all the same.
In my 20s, I was probably closer to Bear (played by Michael Johnston) than I would like to admit. Infatuations without any real sense of the responsibility it requires to be in a relationship, I was kind of a “nice guy,” but the anxieties, lack of self-esteem, and depression that would lead me to therapy in my 30s made me more of a toxic individual than not really respecting women. (At least, that’s how it feels looking back on the other side of that time.) In the first scene, he is practicing telling Nikki (Inde Navarrette) that he has feelings for her on his friend, Sarah (Megan Lawless), while their friend Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) looks on. It’s absolutely awkward, and he gets down on himself easily. When the four hang out later, there are slight hints that Nikki- whom he works with- might feel the same, but Bear is unable to pull the trigger. One day, Nikki drops her tiger’s eye necklace; Bear goes to a crystal shop to replace it, but instead buys a One Wish Willow, a toy which- allegedly- grants one wish per person. After fumbling an attempt to tell Nikki how he feels, he breaks the One Wish Willow, wishing for Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world. He probably should have thought about his wording.
Of course, being a horror movie, the actions that Nikki is possessed to take throughout the film when the One Wish Willow takes hold are absolutely extreme and unhinged. (And trigger warning- some of them revolve around Bear’s cat, Sandy, who died prior to him breaking the One Wish Willow.) One of the big narrative tricks that Barker takes is putting us fully in Bear’s POV throughout the film- he’s onscreen in just about every scene- but as the film continues, shifting our empathy away from Bear to Nikki. At first, her behavior is unusual, but it still feels like her body is pushing against the control of the One Wish Willow. It’s not long before she’s barely behaving like a human, however, and she is subservient completely. The inspired touch in “Obsession” is that Bear does not have much control over Nikki’s behavior, so he is disjointed by her actions, as well; he is incapable of soothing her, in part because his feelings are not nearly on the level of hers, and in part because he misjudged the gravity of his wish. At the time he made the wish, though, he was in a state of emotional distress, and believe me when I say, that is the WORST time for people to make such choices. It very nearly destroyed friendships for me, at the time. Bear’s actions from that moment on are indefensible.
Navarrette has a complicated emotional gauntlet to run as Nikki. We have to see why Bear might have a crush on her in the beginning, and then- once the wish is made- show as the character’s autonomy is stripped away, and the very real emotions that seem to come out as that happens. It is a singular performance, and she goes for broke time and time again, leading up to an ending that is the only way this film can end. She is our emotional compass for “Obsession,” and it’s one of the most jarring experiences I’ve had in a good long while, in a very good way.
