OBSESSION

I don’t know if Curry Barker (26… ffs) has a girlfriend, but my guess is that he does not.  I don’t imagine him to be an incel, more of a volcel… a voluntary celibate who is (possibly wisely…) entirely terrified of the self-annihilating effects of codependency and the very, very scary consequences of receiving unconditional love from a woman who will do anything for you.  Anything.

Gentle Bear (Michael Johnston… a star is born!) has a crush on co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarette… and another!) and, with his feet dangling into the tepid waters of the encroaching friend-zone, uses his One Wish Willow to ask for her to love him more than anyone in the world.  And she does.  The end (for both of ‘em).

Barker has used his exquisitely controlled, LOL-ingly funny and perfectly formed 108 minutes and $750k budget to give us a treatise on men’s fears of intimacy and commitment.  Like BACKROOMS (an inferior film, imo, made for twelve times the cashola), OBSESSION exists in a world without mobile phones or the glorious stalker-friendly landscape of social media (watching Nikki jealously scroll through decades of old Facebook posts and excavate Bear’s ex’s Substacks for evidence of betrayal would be hella tedious, for her and for us, right?).  Instead we are treated to a series of quite brilliant visual metaphors for controlling and coercive behaviours and all aspects of the green eyed monster who so often haunts new relationships, disrupting the NRE (new relationship energy… aka shagging).

Yesterday’s screening was filled to bursting with a young audience, including lots and lots of couples who will no doubt have gone straight to the pub from the cinema to dissect their experience, gulping down a glass of cheap wine or a pint of slightly flat IPA as they realise they have seen just a little teeny-weeny bit of the ugliest side of themselves on the screen (whether in the form of his fears or of her actions… or, indeed, vice-versa) and I imagine there will be a domestic or twenty on the back of those date nights.  [And if I were able to be a fly on the wall of the post-OBSESSION date-night drink of just one couple in the world, it would be Amanda Batula and West Wilson, obvs!  Has ever the beginning of a relationship been so marvellously messy and mutually-destructive?!  They have both proven themselves to be maliciously mendacious and already seem entirely bored of one another.  I see quite a bit of Amanda in Nikki… not least when Bear returns home from a long day at work to find she has not moved since he left… imagine the mess! Other than Ciara’s BPE move of FaceTiming West’s ex-girlfriend during the lunch break, it was a kinda boring second reunion hour, though, right?]

Anywho, OBSESSION is a meticulously conceived and constructed film with not a moment nor a line of dialogue nor a single dollar wasted, so far as I can tell.   Kudos to Curry Barker (another star is born… it’s a veritable supernova out here!). ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️