Obsession

Moral of the story: do the hard things and risk being uncomfortable for the sake of being human with flesh, blood, feelings, and a soul. Real love is a choice you are willing to make and by assuming someone else’s outcome for them in your own head, you strip them of autonomy and humanity. Give awkward life a chance! Like Ethan Hawke recently said—“the one who’s in love always wins” even when it may not feel like it. This review will have my initial thoughts after watching the movie last night and retrospective tidbits from this morning. Grab a snack and enjoy! Immediately after: - already off the bat it is SO incredibly refreshing to see unknown actors so i can focus on the story rather than seeing people I know try and convince me they are acting a part.  - Already finding out this movie had a budget under a million made me incredibly happy because as a professional theatre maker who understands how to put on a show with a budget of $0, less is more and it requires you to get creative and practical at the same time to achieve desired affects. And this team did an incredible job of that. - I can’t remember the last time I was at the movie theatre where I actually didn’t eat any of my popcorn or snacks during the movie, put them aside and was locked in deeply. Movies like this will ensure the cinema experience comes back post covid! Way to go Obsession team!  - On this note: what a rush of dopamine I felt when I audibly gasped twice in the theatre and had visceral reactions to the plot of the movie. Again, bring back movie theatre experiences!! Every time I tried to predict what would happen next, I was proven wrong in an amazing way. - I loved how the plot was very focused. It didn’t overcomplicate itself with this entity or magic that was the One Wish Willow. The script gave us what we needed to know that was important—left out what wasn’t. I think a lot of horror movies or any movie with supernatural elements will fall into the trap of having to explain themselves or have the characters do research and try and defeat this entity or “save the day” when in reality that’s not what is the most likely scenario. Having the characters figure out by trial and error which led to huge costs for their mistakes was captivating to me as an audience member. - The screenplay really captured how real young adults talk. They talk over each other. They curse a lot when it doesn’t make sense. I laughed audibly at several scenes between Bear and Ian because it just felt incredibly realistic as to how young guys talk. The way the table conversation was at trivia night and at the bar was incredibly similar to how my friends and I talk at the bar every weekend. Storytelling should be at its core relatable and empathetic to engage your audience and the script kept me hooked!! - I loved the specific choices to not show Nikki’s facial expressions when she was possessed and the lighting choices in certain areas to hide what she looked like when she spoke. - On that note the choice of mostly using mid shots and eye/shoulder level was great—we were on the same level as Bear seeing his expressions and uncomfortable with how close we saw possessed Nikki’s expressions. Editing was on point with dialogue cadence so I know the direction and entire technical team put a lot of choice and care into their art. Retrospective analysis:  - I either saw another Letterboxd review or somewhere else say “He didn’t use the wish to make her like him because there was already great potential with what we saw already—he used the wish as a short cut to bypass the difficulty of discomfort that makes human life so complex” Bingo! What a fascinating take on this! And at the expense of protecting his comfort, he put the girl he claimed to love through the most discomfort of all—torture as a prisoner in her own body.  - Bear is incel coded and what I loved is how in the beginning off the bat we are made to sympathize or empathize with him. The first scene we get is realistic as he fights nerves to be vulnerable as a man (which he states point blank to Ian about how hard that he he’s pouring his heart out) and then immediately he comes home to find his cat died on accident eating his narcotics. Sobbing on his bed. Wow. Before the title card, we are given A GOLD MINE of information on who our protagonist is. What a sad life he has and a sad situation. If I pity myself, everyone else will pity me too right? Who would want to date me when my life’s a mess? He’ll just be scared and always assume that no one will ever like him back. Self loathing is comfortable and an easy loop to get caught in (speaking from lots of experience). Then the One Wish Willow. One wish can change anything for you! And he has a chance to fix his fate! And we want to root for him and see if it can go up from here! But instead of rooting for him and understanding him as the movie goes on, the choices he makes slowly make us lose him along the way. He loses credibility and reason. Why? He’s obsessed with the obsession. At his core, like most humans, he is selfish. He calls the number not to cancel the wish, but the adjust it slightly (still keeping her possessed) so he can have the best idea of her he wanted in his head. The good and not the bad. Keep the easy, and get rid of the uncomfortable. It’s not about him being a knowing villain and choosing evil, it’s him thinking he’s okay because in the end he’s the one who’s happy and she’s happy to be with him. And he doesn’t value her as a person, and removed all her autonomy. So much so that the sex shot with her dead eyes and sounds is horrifying as we see him raping her before our eyes. In the end, he takes the easy way out by killing himself. I don’t believe it’s to free Nikki either, but to simply escape the situation he’s in. Because at the very end, Nikki snaps free from the curse and is left with 3 dead friends and the trauma and her lost autonomy, and the literal MESS Bear made all on her plate. Literally. This will take a lot more for me to think about and chew on to flesh out but I really love what we were given to think about.  - Turns out Michael Johnston is openly gay/queer! This role as Bear goes to show that queer actors do not have to be boxed into queer stories where their sexuality is the story line. And vice versa—a non queer actor can play a character who’s on the sexuality spectrum (“gay for pay” lol) and be able to tell a story about wrestling with self identity when it’s not their real life. I guess that’s controversial but actors are actors for a reason! We assume the life of our character when it’s not us because we are playing a part! Any prejudice surrounding this is limiting and I know it is a very nuanced subject but I figured I’d mentioned that I was thoroughly impressed and enjoyed my theatre experience and can safely say Obsession is my new obsession for weeks to come :)