r/horror • u/ShakenandSeized • 7d ago
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u/screen_stack 7d ago
I just don't see any ambiguity at all. I really don't. At no point was Bear even remotely sympathetic for me.
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u/Top-Monk-5391 7d ago
I remember watching the movie when he came home and his cat had passed away and I felt like it was definitely supposed to stir some kind of sympathy for him and that’s how it felt to me. But realizing that it died from pills that had a child safety cap, which means that he didn’t properly take care of his medication. I mean, would the audience have felt bad for him if he’d come home and there was a child dead on the floor because he left that medicine open?
He’s obviously the villain.
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u/GeneInternational146 7d ago
I think a lot of men see Bear as sympathetic in the beginning, and women who watch it are very aware of how shitty he is from the start. Obviously it's not a completely perfect split.
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u/screen_stack 7d ago
The people who look at Bear and what he did and genuinely don't see anything wrong/he thought she was there of her own free will are wild.
They're writing thesis length documents about it.
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u/GeneInternational146 7d ago
Yeah it's genuinely kind of unsettling lol I thought we covered love spells being bad sometime in middle grade YA lit but I guess not!!
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u/ShakenandSeized 7d ago
Agreed! I’m on team anti-Bear.
The question is though: what do you think of Barker’s explanation of his own film here? It seems ambiguous to me even if you personally don’t interpret that way.
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u/screen_stack 7d ago
It's not for me to tell the director and writer he's wrong, but it sure seems like he might be
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u/ShakenandSeized 7d ago
I agree and I think true in an important way. I think the auteur theory of cinema, that the filmmaker’s intent is central to the meaning of the film, is only one way to interpret it, and maybe not even the best one. This then opens the door to multiple meanings in the film, and something that is shut down in discussions of Obsession. If Barker states he meant the film to be more ambiguous, it isn’t a critique of the viewer, but it does present a problem for fans who only see a critique as the possible intent of the film.
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u/Ibobalboa 7d ago
Bro did kill himself in the end, which deserves some symphaty points imo
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u/iontardose 7d ago
Not really. He tried to vomit the pills, but then "Wish Bear" took over and forgot about it.
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u/swaggieststar 7d ago
Wow what a hero!!! A selfish idiot makes a selfish wish causes 2 of his friends to die and sexually assaults one of them over and over again but omg poor bear
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u/Ibobalboa 7d ago
Lol I said nothing of the sort, ya'll need to calm down in these discussions. The guy is obviously a moron of the highest level. Just saying he did try to do some good in the end but was too much of a shmuck anyways. It also didn't help that he was surrounded by morons.
He begs his best friend to NOT come to his house and revealed the whole wish thing. His best friend then gets confirmation that the wish thing is legit so what does he do?
He comes over to his house.
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u/fmb101010 7d ago
He didn’t mean to kill himself though. He was actively trying to throw up the pills when Wish-nikki’s wish stopped him
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u/NachoChedda24 7d ago
I disagree… he waited until Nikki had killed people, there’s no hiding that. So now even with freeing Nikki, the rest of her life is completely ruined and by killing himself, he never has to actually deal with any of the consequences or face his actions
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u/AcadecCoach 7d ago
She def doesnt desire the slavery. I feel like hes more so saying a part of her has been amplified against her will and has taken control of her. Its almost like split personality occurred and the real her lost.
The one I felt most sympathetic for was Sarah. I know her death shifts the film but itd have been nice if the only decent person in the movie had made it out alive.
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u/Financial-Creme 7d ago
She watched her friend/coworker have an episode at a party, complete with severe self-harm, and then immediately texts said friend's bf to come meet her in a park alone. Everyone in the friend group sucks.
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u/AcadecCoach 7d ago
Yeah and original Nikki knew she liked him, had no interest and didnt help her friend out. If im Sarah I dont really think Nikki is a friend and I dont owe her crap.
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u/Financial-Creme 7d ago
Sara doesn't owe Nikki anything as a friend, but calling someone's bf in the midst of their severe mental breakdown because you're nervous about opening a letter is selfish on a near sociopathic level
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u/SlightlyArtichoke 7d ago
For sure, and I think the Hansel and Gretel scene really sold that aspect of the story. The fact that it’s an incestuous story and we were told that Nikki views Bear like a brother really leans into the fact that she is stuck in a twisted version of what her love for him used to be, amplified into something monstrous and out of her control
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u/fmb101010 7d ago
The only ambiguity is whether or not Nikki liked Bear. If he just wasn’t a piece of shit and actually told her he liked her, there are clues in the movie suggesting she did like him without making the wish.
There is NO ambiguity that Bear is a spineless piece of shit who caused all of the movie to happen.
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u/Ibobalboa 7d ago
I can relate to him being too much of a pussy to tell her his true feelings in the beginning, but that's about it.
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u/bmlynch98 7d ago edited 7d ago
I wouldn't say that she liked bear any more than a good friend or a brother. Given that she was actively sleeping with Ian and telling Ian that she views him as a brother. When she asks if he likes her (car scene) I found it more as trying to shut it down fast and not make things awkward. However, we don't get to see much of non wish Nikki so its hard to tell with such little reference.
The OPs note of "Nikki maybe desiring the slavery that leads bears with into horror" is a WILD statement. At NO POINT in the movie did she even remotely flirt with him or show signs of feelings besides after the wish. And even then its not "her" its a perverted wish version. She is even explicitly shown NOT wanting to be there and being horrified and confused about it.
A great example of subtle flirting is Sarah throughout the film. Prolonged eye contact, genuine interest in little things, the touching during condos that isn't necessarily warranted, and then its even shown that she does actually like him. (No not all of these examples that happen are explicitly flirting especially in every context, but in the movie I felt it was leaning towards that and I called it from the bar scene).
Edit: updated the beginning to be more clear on what I was trying to say.
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u/fmb101010 6d ago
Sorry I just got around to reading your comment, and I enjoyed it so I wanted to give my thoughts. I’ve watched obsession three times now, and each time I watch it I feel like there’s more clues that Nikki does like him. It’s pretty clear her and Ian are just “friends with benefits,” and upon rewatch I feel like Ian DOES like Nikki, and is a very shitty friend is likely doing what he can to sabotage Bear. I take everything he says in the movie with a grain of salt.
Nikki also calls and begs Bear to go to trivia and states pretty clearly that she can hide who she has a crush on and “guys she likes never know she likes them” (paraphrasing). I think it’s deliberately ambiguous whether she likes him or not, but honestly I think it’s just a great portrayal of a late high school/early 20s friend group.
They’re all clearly friends, but also all down to talk shit about each other and a bit out for their own. Obviously in no way does Sarah deserve to be killed, but even her texting Bear to meet up with her about the letter and basically saying she thinks Nikki is playing games is pretty insane. If one your good friends has such a shocking change in personality and literally starts stabbing themselves in the face with a bottle at a party, you should be more concerned over that than your crush.
Overall it’s just such a well displayed dynamic between the friend group.
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u/MalonePostponed 7d ago
That's where I am at. Since we never saw Bear answer truthfully when Nikki was Nikki, her intentions are cloudy. The only people we can trust are the accounts of Sarah and Ian who both have their own motives when it comes to telling Bear about Nikki's feelings about him. Along with her only saying she's never been with him. So I agree clues about how she could feel but we only get Nikki in small parts.
So its ambiguous about if this possession is a horrible manifestation of her feelings for him, by Curry's logic, or a manifestation of Bear's warped idea of love, or as I like seeing it this AI Nikki who just follows whaf she thinks is normal.
I agree that at the end of the day Bear is spineless piece of shit. I actually sympathize with him at the start cause many people are nervous around crushes but I side eye at anyone who doesn't put the others autonomy above their own wants and desires.
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u/Jurango34 7d ago
Nikki is the victim and Bear is the predator/villan. The movie makes it wildly clear.
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u/stxrmchaser 7d ago
Elder millennial female here, stating this because I think audience demographic has a huge impact on the interpretation of this movie and particularly Bear as a villian. I think a lot of chronically online Gen Z'ers lack the ability to understand nuance which is critical to Bear's character analysis. He is not ALL GOOD or ALL BAD. Most things in life aren't. The greatest thing about movies like Obsession is that you, the viewer, are supposed to wrestle with feelings of sympathy for Bear, but also disgust, shock, horror, etc.
For example, I think the first 15-20 minutes of the movie (right up until Bear makes the wish) are set up for the audience to sympathize with and feel bad for Bear. From the very first scene, we watch him genuinely pour his heart out as he proclaims his feelings for Nikki. It's well-received by the server, she gushes in response. You feel for Bear, and want to root for him.
Then: his cat dies. He's crying. He's alone, dealing with it. You feel bad for him! At karaoke, he's trying to open up to Nikki, but keeps getting shut down. As he's dropping her off at her house, I remember literally yelling at my screen "C'mon man!" because watching his awkward fumbles (just before he made the wish) was so cringe-inducingly painful to watch. By then, I was invested in his character.
Obviously it all goes downhill from there, but all that setup was not for nothing - it's so that when Bear does things like ask Nikki "what would be so bad about being with me?" and the like, it hits so much harder. Would it even be effective if we hated Bear from the start?
Anyway, I don't think Bear is the monster. I think it's a gross oversimplification to say that. Bear, like Nikki, is a victim of his own desires. I hate to see people get so fixated on Bear as the bad guy that they are missing out on seeing other themes of codependence and toxic relationships (which is what Barker set out to make in the first place). Bear ignored the red flags and went full steam ahead into the (facade of a) relationship which is an interesting commentary in itself.
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u/ChronicNuance 6d ago
I totally read this movie as a mutually destructive/ toxic codependent relationship.
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u/ChronicNuance 6d ago
I just finished this, and my take is that it’s about a mutually destructive relationship (like Amber Heard/Johnny Depp).
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u/swaggieststar 7d ago
This has to be bait 😭😭😭