JONESING FOR FILMS

Tales of genies or tricksters making a wish curdle or making a deal with the devil are timeless cautionary tales. “The Monkey’s Paw” is a story so well-known now that it is not just a short story but short-hand for wishes gone awry. Obsession is a horror film that applies the monkey paw premise to the subject of unrequited love.

Baron “Bear” Bailey is a young adult who harbors a crush on Nikki (Inde Navarrette), a co-worker at a music store, but is too afraid to actually ask her out. His other two friends and coworkers, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) think it is a bad idea and Bear fears jeopardizing his friendship with Nikki. On a whim, he buys a “One Wish Willow” novelty item at a store and wishes for Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world. To Bear’s surprise, the wish comes true, but his dream scenario slowly turns into a waking nightmare.

Harboring a secret crush is something everyone can relate to and, in that way, Bear is a relatable and a sympathetic character. It’s clear from their interactions early on in the movie that they have a close friendship that borders on potentially being something more. Even in driving her home after trivia night, she flat out asks him if he likes her and he demurs in the moment. All of this, again, is very relatable, especially for young adults still figuring life out.

On the flip side of all that, though, is Nikki being the object of Bear’s infatuation and how that can take a darker turn. It is a slippery slope between having a crush on someone and how that can quietly lead to fixation, which is an objectification in its own way too. Using the One Wish Willow is a throwaway gag, but also a something done out of desperation.

That desperation ultimately reveals the selfish nature of Bear’s obsession. When the wish actually works and things start to go sideways with clear flashing hazard signs pointing out that things are not right, Bear ignores these warnings, with her obsession with him becoming more and more intense, scary, and crazy because he is unwilling to let go of his own obsession with her.

Inde Navarrette gives a tremendous performance as Nikki. Things escalate from the start of her “obsession” with Bear from the innocuous (being clingy), to the unnerving (yelling when he gets out of bed or cutting his hair while he sleeps), to the disturbed (standing in place all day when he leaves for work, and the less said about his dead cat the better). The film does a masterful job of a repeated motif of shots of Nikki in shadow so that her face is either not visible, or visible enough that the shadows distort her features (or maybe they used some CGI to distort her features).

One could argue that it is a dual performance of Nikki and “Nikki” because the film very clearly lays out that the “Nikki” that has become obsessed with Bear is not the same one that Bear harbored a secret crush for. At moments, there are glimpses of the real Nikki breaking through in ways that evoked the sunken place in Get Out for me. In this case, the symbolism is about men treating women as objects of desire rather than humans who have autonomy.

When it comes to this message, the movie does become a little one-note in Nikki’s aberrant behavior, but that note is played with ever increasing volume almost minute by minute until it is practically the Horn of Helm Hammerhand at the end of The Two Towers. I would’ve liked to have seen more exploration of the nuance of Bear grappling with the realization that the relationship is not real if the other person does not have agency in choosing you, but the path it goes down instead is meant to hammer home the point emphatically.

I almost want to label Obsession as the antithesis of what a perfect first date movie would be, but actually asking a girl (or guy) out on a date would be a bigger step than Bear ever manages to make in his selfish and misguided pursuit of love. But it is most certainly a horror movie working as a cautionary tale of being careful what you wish for, because there can be unintended consequences to getting your heart’s desire, especially if you take a shortcut to get it.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars