Obsession Movie Review and Psychological Analysis

I’m going to make the case that contrary to many analyses of this film, this is NOT the story of an incel (involuntary celibate) villain, but a vol-cel (voluntary celibate) villain. Read on and see why.

In this movie, a young man named Baron (who goes by “Bear”), yearns for a young woman named Nikki, who is in his tight knight group of friends, along with Ian and Sarah. Bear cannot bring himself to ask Nikki out before she leaves town, because he is so fearful of awkwardness.

Bear finds a metaphysical gift shop while shopping for a crystal to gift Nikki, but then finds a product he’s interested in for his own purposes: he purchases and then makes a wish for Nikki to “love him more than anyone in the world” with a cheap, disposable gag gift called a “one wish willow” that looks like something you would order from a 1950s comic book. The wish forces Nikki to become romantically obsessed with Bear, resulting in comedically exaggerated, joker-esque smiles from her that suggest she is inhabited and possessed by the wish, and that her character and personality have become replaced by something completely foreign. She essentially becomes a human doll. The rest of the film showcases her bizarre attempts at showing love to Bear, and we see moments of her actual consciousness shining through the robotic new “not Nikki” exterior, like when she asks Bear to end her life, and when she harms herself.

We also witness how this rapid love affair shocks Nikki and Bear’s mutual close friends Ian and Sarah, who both think Nikki is “playing” Bear for some reason, and they both tell him “she saw you as a little brother.” The movie cleverly gives both of these people potential ulterior motives for suggesting and overstating this to Bear. Sarah quite obviously likes Bear, and he finds out through her that Ian and Nikki were “friends with benefits” for some time, unbeknownst to Bear.

I think it’s entirely bizarre how Ian and Nikki kept their “hooking up” a secret from Bear, and Ian was so prideful that he wouldn’t admit to Bear that he was jealous and confused by Nikki’s newfound adoration for Bear. The film makes Nikki’s feeling toward Bear somewhat ambiguous at the beginning, as she asks him “do you like me? Because now is the time to tell me.” As the movie unfolds, both Ian and Sarah seem highly concerned for Bear, and suspect that Nikki has ulterior motives, when in reality she’s subjected to a magic spell. Both Sarah and Ian tell Bear that Nikki, “saw him as a little brother.” Ian even insults Nikki’s character in attempt to sour Bear’s passions for her. When that doesn’t work, he suggests that Bear is “taking advantage” of Nikki during what is clearly her mental breakdown. This is a great example of male intra-sexual competition and sabotage. Why is it Ian’s business what Nikki and Bear do? He kept his romance with Nikki a secret from Bear, potentially knowing all along how infatuated Bear was with her.

There’s been much ado about how this film is a metaphor for men’s fear of women with borderline personality disorder (BPD), because Nikki behaves erratically, wildly oscillating between obsessive adoration of Bear and wrathful possessiveness, but this is simply the primitive defense mechanism of “splitting,” which is a core feature of BPD and not the entire diagnosis. A more fascinating read of Nikki’s interior psyche would be that the power of the One Wish Willow actually regressed Nikki to an earlier mental state or age, rendering her robotic and bland. It’s an insult to people with BPD to consider Nikki’s mental condition to map neatly onto BPD.

Bear leaves two female victims in this movie, and I see too few people discussing just how poorly Sarah was treated in this movie. She clearly harbored romantic feelings for Bear and made herself far more available than Nikki did, and was not sarcastic and rude to Bear, unlike pre-brainwashing Nikki. For whatever reason, Bear wanted the unattainable partner when he was truly NOT without other romantic options. He was not an incel, but rather a clueless or stubborn vol-cel. It doesn’t matter which, because cluelessness in men can be deadly. The film shows us, through Sarah’s flirting and care for Bear, that she was truly interested in him, yet in staggering levels of tunnel vision, he was just not interested in her, until it was too late. Bear is the guy who doesn’t choose the “nice girl,” and pursues the girl who is more of a challenge, all the while wondering why SHE doesn’t like him, “the nice guy,” who has no charisma. It is a tale of male hypocrisy.

Bear’s cardinal sin is one of selfish lack of imagination. His wish was not used to grant himself some permanent or life changing status boost like massive confidence, wealth, genius intelligence, or a dream home. He didn’t want to exert his own influence into reality and receive the satisfaction of expending the effort, of impacting the world through is own power; he wanted to change reality itself to accommodate him. He was happy to bend Nikki’s world to fold into his own, instead of expanding his own powers, assets or influence through a more creative wish.

Obsession is a story about the corrosive power of male insecurity and indecisiveness, and how futile it is to drift in life as a man without making your wishes (pun intended) known, when there are stakes involved. Waiting for a perfect moment to profess your feelings is self-sabotaging behavior.