This is everyone's 'Obsession'?
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Obviously “Obsession” tapped into something. You don’t earn nearly half a billion dollars on a $1 million budget for no reason. It’s a remarkable achievement worth understanding.
And when you figure it out, please let me know. Creating a vibe isn’t the same as delivering on a premise, and “Obsession” stalls out so significantly and so early that it’s hard not to feel baffled by the buzz.
It’s there in the title: Baron (Michael Johnston, dull), called Bear by his friends even though his personality’s more like a mouse, is totally obsessed with Nikki (Inde Navarrette of “Superman & Lois”), who seems to have a place for him in the friend zone of her heart. It’s nothing a magic toy can’t overcome, though, so before you can say monkey’s paw Bear’s wished for Nikki to love him more than anything else in the world, and pals Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), who’s tired of Bear’s pining, and Sarah (Megan Lawless), who wishes Bear would look her way instead, can’t fathom why suddenly Nikki’s drooling endlessly over a dude that she previously saw more like a brother.
Writer-director Curry Barker is a popular YouTuber thanks to his show “That’s a Bad Idea,” created with Tomlinson, and with his first feature the filmmaker certainly shows an awareness for building tension in silence and darkness. If only he had more awareness for the directions the story could and doesn’t go. Bear never really feels that desperate, and post-wish he feels uncomfortable immediately — if the point is for him to learn a major lesson about consent and the importance of not forcing affection, neither the character nor the movie get there because the whole endeavor feels limited and off from the start. (The wish itself also isn’t as all-consuming as it could be.) Even the hilariously terrible “Whatever It Takes” had more to say about discovering the human truth of a crush placed on a pedestal.
Navarrette deserves every bit of her breakout status (even if Nikki’s character, like much of the movie, mostly spins her wheels), and “Obsession” hinges on an evergreen reality about the danger of anything in extremes. There’s something here about how different intensity feels in theory and in practice, and there are many necessary conversations to have about modern communication problems and power imbalances — along with the sinister dimensions of the supposed nice guy whose persistence is actually harassment, both in real life and on screen.
But the film is underwritten — just as the similarly successful “Weapons” was — and points at something without trying to understand it from either side. “Obsession” contains little insight about chemistry or desire or boundaries and really should’ve broadened its vision of this world’s wishes and expectations and platonic and romantic relationships. The menace is too predictable, the ending is too Shakespearean, and if you think Nikki’s last name (Freeman) is a clever detail in a movie about a guy who quickly longs to be a free man, well, that makes one of us.
C
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