Obsession

I wanted to love this. The "be careful what you wish for" hook is genuinely fun, and the first act had me hooked — there's a nasty little idea buried in here about how far self-pity can curdle into something monstrous. But somewhere around the midpoint, the movie starts repeating itself. Every escalation feels like a slightly louder version of the last one instead of an actual progression, and by the time we got to the "shocking" finale, I'd already guessed where it was headed twenty minutes earlier. The lead performance is fine but one-note — sad eyes, mumbled apologies, rinse, repeat. I never bought the central relationship enough to feel the dread I think the film wanted me to feel. The supernatural rules are also frustratingly vague; things happen because the script needs them to, not because there's any internal logic to the "wish." And the runtime is brutal for how thin the plot actually is — there's maybe 80 minutes of movie stretched to fill a much longer one. It's not without style — a few sequences are genuinely well shot, and the score does some heavy lifting in scenes that otherwise drag. But "well shot and overlong" isn't a great trade for a horror movie that's getting this much hype. I left feeling like I'd watched a strong short film padded out with filler. Wanted to be obsessed. Mostly just checked my watch.