Released on May 15, the movie \u201cObsession\u201d has grossed nearly $300 million at the box office, making it the top-grossing festival film of all time. But what\u2019s behind the obsession with \u201cObsession\u201d?<\/p>\n
By portraying the loss of free will, the film offers a critique of the patriarchal structures that limit women\u2019s autonomy. At the same time, it intersects with the intricacies of relationships, highlighting power imbalances that define them.<\/p>\n
The movie tells the story of Bear and Nikki, two coworkers at a music store. Bear has a crush on Nikki, but he\u2019s scared to confess. Bear buys her a \u201cOne Wish Willow,\u201d a toy that claims to make a wish come true upon snapping it in half. After a failed attempt at expressing his feelings to her, he breaks the stick, wishing that Nikki loved him more than anyone else in the world. To his surprise, the wish comes true, and Nikki becomes obsessed with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At first glance, \u201cObsession\u201d seems scary due to Nikki\u2019s obsession with Bear and what she does as a result.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNikki is shown to be the obsessed one this whole time, and goes to these crazy lengths for Bear, whether it\u2019s taping up the door, peeing yourself, or killing people,\u201d Julia Faig, a third-year at the University of Minnesota, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the film\u2019s true horror lies in Nikki\u2019s loss of autonomy, as she is forced to watch her body act in ways that contradict her genuine thoughts and emotions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s reaffirming the stereotype of crazy women who are obsessed with you, when that was just not the case,\u201d Faig said. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t her, that\u2019s just straight-up not real, but a lot of times that\u2019s what women are watered down to.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Nikki may be portrayed as crazy, the audience knows that her behavior is the direct result of Bear\u2019s wish.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the wish is finally broken at the end of the film, Nikki regains consciousness only to find herself surrounded by three dead bodies, two of whom she has killed while under Bear\u2019s control. Meanwhile, Bear, the person truly responsible for these events, is dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The film leaves the aftermath unresolved, but the audience can infer that Nikki will suffer the consequences of actions she was never fully in control of, likely facing imprisonment for crimes that Bear ultimately caused.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end, where she makes a wish with the One Wish Willow, I was so mad because he just died right after,\u201d recent University graduate Britta Pietila said. \u201cWhen she\u2019s about to get him back, of course, he dies, and now she has to deal with all his shit. I feel like it\u2019s very telling of a lot of modern issues, how women continue to get screwed over by men.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pietila said the line that stood out to her most in the film is after Nikki murders Sarah, who holds romantic feelings towards Bear, and goes to comfort Bear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she says, \u2018Bear, this is all your fault,\u2019 like, \u2018 You know this is all your fault,\u2019 I loved that one because I was like, \u2018Yeah, it is,\u2019\u201d Pietila said.<\/p>\n
The scene confirms Nikki is aware of the wish and knows she has been stripped of her autonomy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was projecting myself onto Nikki the whole time, just like seeing everything from the real Nikki\u2019s point of view. She\u2019s being tortured nonstop, and obviously in the movie it\u2019s supernatural because you can\u2019t make a wish and someone can change like that, but it kind of feels real,\u201d Faig said. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s every woman\u2019s worst nightmare.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even after Bear confirms that Nikki\u2019s behavior is a result of his wish, he continues the relationship, showing he is fueled by a selfish desire for validation and control, not love. If he truly cared for Nikki, he wouldn\u2019t have been satisfied in a relationship where she wasn\u2019t acting like herself, and he would\u2019ve wanted her to be free, regardless of whether she was with him or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bear\u2019s feelings and actions stem from insecurity, but Bear thinks his feelings are love. When he breaks the \u201cOne Wish Willow\u201d and wishes for Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world, his idea of love, which is really an obsession, is what Nikki is overcome with. When Nikki is first possessed, she mistakes the death of Bear\u2019s cat as the death of her own cat, symbolizing that the tables have been turned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he was in love with her,\u201d Pietila said. \u201cHe was obsessed with her, and then therefore he makes her obsessed with him, and he doesn\u2019t like it, because when they\u2019re in the car, she\u2019s like \u2018Bear, do you like me?\u2019 and then he\u2019s like, \u2018No,\u2019 and then she\u2019s relieved. He was obsessed, and she didn\u2019t like it, and now that she\u2019s obsessed with him, he doesn\u2019t like that either.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bear doesn\u2019t want love \u2014 he wants to control. He doesn\u2019t realize that he\u2019s gone too far until Nikki kills Sarah, someone he had a genuine connection with, rather than an artificial obsession. If he truly cared for Nikki, he would\u2019ve listened to her pleas for him to kill her. Instead, he states the haunting line, \u201cWhat\u2019s so bad about being with me?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
By exploring these complex feelings and relationships, \u201cObsession\u201d examines how women are treated within a patriarchal society. Attempts to dominate and suppress women are often disguised as acts of love, revealing how patriarchal power structures can use love as an excuse for control and suppression. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Released on May 15, the movie \u201cObsession\u201d has grossed nearly $300 million at the box office, making it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-505524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}