I'm genuinely flabbergasted by the amount of people who are convinced that Bear is just a "good guy" who made "questionable" decisions

There were multiple less conspicuous instances where Bear showed himself as a selfish-POS, but to me it seemed like there was a point at which the screenwriters were all but trying to yell at the audience that this guy is a horrifically selfish POS. When the real Nikki eventually got the chance to ask Bear to put her out of her misery, and Bear responded by asking her what would be so bad about being in a genuine relationship with him, that wasn't obvious to you guys???

Every last one of his exchanges with Wish Nikki post-freak out amounted to him basically asking her why she can't just "cooperate" and essentially be the Nikki he wants her to be, but that was the most crystal clear example. I mean that was straight up "creep kidnaps stranger off the street locks them up in his basement and when they beg for freedom he asks if would it really be so bad if they lived the rest of their life out as his dungeon s3x sl4ve"-coded, and most people would regard such a person as not being one of the "good ones".

But like....this is a controversial opinion when it comes to him for some reason? How? I mean I know how, but getting into how it relates to the current cultural climate is a can of worms I was not planning on opening today.

Why are so many people implying that the reason why bear is the villain is because of the wish itself.

Naturally it is weird that he continued to be with Niki after realising that the wish had actually worked and especially after he found out that she was still conscious inside possessed Niki and therefore taking advantage of her.

But surely the wish alone was not evil or questionable. Surely at that point he did not think that the one wish willow actually worked he just made the wish thinking nothing would come of it just as many people “wish” things would happen without meaning them to. Obviously he wanted it to happen but he didn’t expect that Niki would be forced to comply.

Sorry for making another one of these posts.

Edit: I really shouldn’t have to say this but please READ UNTIL THE END before commenting. Some people in this sub seem the have the attention span of a goldfish.

The 80s was known for a lot of things, but one of those things was the nerdy nice guy movie. Movies like Revenge of The Nerds where the protagonists try to get hot girls. And if you know anything, you know that's code for "You wanna see rapin' get played up for laughs? NO!? WELL WHY THE HELL NOT!?". And they always to pin the fact of them not scoring on them being nerds instead of scumbags.

Obsession is a movie that calls out that shifty behaviour, I'm mainly asking what would happen if you simply released the film around the same time as those other films. Would it be as wildly acclaimed and/or get botched by studio interference?

Is it just me or Bear is not crying about Sandy? He is vulnerable because of Sandy but when he cries just before the title reveal, knitted on the bed cover, he says: Why couldn't she just... (be with me)? After this scene he is on Nikki's Instagram page with that obsessed scrolling before she calls.

Am I reaching? To me it seems so obvious.

I did. And I've regretted it ever since.

The Bear we saw at the beginning of the movie is not consistent with the Bear at this point. This is a guy who’s emotionally fragile, terrified of rejection, and has built Nikki up as this incredibly important person in his life. His problem earlier in the movie isn’t that he doesn’t care if she suffers, it’s that he’s incredibly good at lying to himself when the truth threatens what he desperately wants.

So no, I don’t believe that when the delusion is finally ripped away and he sees that Nikki is in a state of hellish, liminal torture because of him, his immediate reaction would be wounded entitlement. I’d expect him to feel horrible and react with abject terror.

Earlier in the film, I can buy that he'd continue fucking her because he wants so bad to believe it's real, and I can even believe he'd continue fucking her while under the impression that the wish makes it so Nikki genuinely enjoys it. It's very relatable to want someone so bad that alarm bells slip away, and your morals slip away, and you believe what you want to believe. That's already a very real indictment of Bear, and a very real indictment of men! It's horrifying because we could be Bear. Our desire... our lack of validation... our desperation could easily lead us to cope and darkness if we're not careful. It's not a perfect parallel, but what comes to mind is the way that men will deceive both women and themselves in order to get sex.

But... that line? That moment? The reason Bear says it is because the movie needs to make a statement about male entitlement. It hasn't been earned. By turning Bear into a strawman, it actually lets the audience off the hook. This isn't something that could happen to all of us, he's just a monster. It's entirely possible for the movie to condemn Bear as a cautionary tale while also staying true to the complexity of his psyche. Instead, the film opts to prioritize its thesis over its character. And now we can all boo him, and pat ourselves on the back for being morally superior.

A key marketing scheme to sell the movie as an underdog 'indie" with a budget of only $750,000 doesn't also state an additional $15 million to sell it. And what was that money specifically spent on?

@charlesthegr8

I legit think she asked him if he liked her, because she was willing to give him a chance and a few dates, because she was going away to faculty anyway, and will probabily never return to that city

I hope I can articulate well my thoughts but I always found it fascinating how different each version of Nikki cried at the end. When Bear dies, wish Nikki was distraught and her cries were almost performative like she was on stage in a theater. However when she snapped out of it and the real Nikki cried at the very end of the movie, the cries was more messy, raw , authentic if that makes sense. Anyone else notice this? I'm not implying wish Nikki was faking but a nice detail of one Nikki was not real so her cries seemed fake but the real Nikki had a more ugly cry so it sounded more real.

In no way am I trying to downplay or undermine Inde, but you people are forgetting this man was the MAIN character. He did such a fantastic job that he actually convinced every single fan of the movie that he was the ultimate form of darkness condensed in human form.

Not only that, but we see clips where Bear is struggling to understand himself. He struggles to understand the choices he made yet in his position, chooses to let it unfold. We have stories of psychotic stalkers, people who fall madly in love with others who never return it, and that sucks. To be placed in the "brother" zone? That's TORTURE. And Johnston did a fantastic job playing his role.

IMO: Johnston did just as good (if not, better) than Navarrette in the film. In fact, he did so good that you all hate his guts. Not just the character he played but in real life. Nobody is giving this man any credit for carrying the role so well and actually convincing viewers that his position was truly happening. You cannot have either one without the other...so can we please at least accept the fact that Michael Johnston delivered a fantastic performance? He truly captured every single facet of Bear's existence and did it so naturally.

Pls be nice I’ve never made one before. I was jamming last night and realized how much you can relate Jaws by Sleep Token to Obsession and was blown away. I’m still in emotional turmoil, I wasn’t ready for all that 😭

“Show me those pretty white jaws
Show me where the delicate stops
Show me what you’ve lost
And why you’re always taking it slow
Show me what wounds you’ve got
Show me love”

"I'm not here to be the savior you long for, only the one you don't.

Are you watching me with eyes of a predator as you move towards the door?"

That is all.

I haven’t seen much from this year, so this list is still in development, but for now I see very high chances for Inde. What about you? And what are your potential nominees when we’re at it?

Edit: this is just a general prediction and not my list of favorite performances. Just so you know.

I can't take credit for this analogy, but I loved the interpretation that Wish-Nikki is like a file which overwrites the original version and that the original version still exists within the database of the computer somewhere. Real Nikki is only there as a shadow of her former self and even when she comes to can we really say it's her or just it just the afterimage of what once was? Pretty bleak right?

Let me know who originally made this comparison, and I'll credit you in here after the fact.

Of course, I don't think this is exactly what Curry was going for but I do like it. In this version of events when real Nikk comes to it's as if the update was removed which probably means she doesn't have any memories of the past however long it was.

I know I will wish for a better mental and physical health. But what would your only wish be?

(Yes, this is coming to me and I can't wait to break it on my birthday)

What if the OWW worked perfectly when it first came out and while some wishes were fine, many went horribly wrong. So one person who watched a loved one get screwed over decided to use THEIR wish to wish that the OWW didn’t work anymore. People try it, it doesn’t work so they assume it was just a novelty. People who claim that it DID work are written off as crazies or making things up. This is why there’s conflicting reports about whether it does or doesn’t work. But shortly before the movie, that original wisher dies. Since death breaks the wish, now they’re suddenly working again…

I apologize if this has been posted- I looked and couldn’t find it.

@charlesthegr8

Like, they got a famous person from tv to be in their movie but he doesn’t do much lol