Analysis on new film, Obsession (2026)
Some of my analysis on the film, Obsession and important details I havent seen people talk about yet
- Starting with an obvious yet misunderstood take - Bear is the villain, Nikki is the victim.
I’ve seen many people also say no one’s a victim, everyone’s a victim, everyone’s the villain, etc.
Let's start off with the fact that Nikki was being mindlessly controlled while her subconscious was active and aware the entire time! Why would she be a villain when she had no power over her autonomy? And the number of times she tries to escape this spellbind? The number of times she snaps back confused, scared, traumatized. She literally begged Bear to kill her - not even a “help me, bear”, she would just rather die. Imagine going through months of watching yourself being possessed, moving “thoughtlessly” while simultaneously feeling your real thoughts.
Bear is 1000% the villain. Even before all the crazy stuff happened, I didn’t even consider Bear making that wish in an innocent, unknowing way. From a surface level, a boy wishes a girl would love him more than anyone else. On a deeper level, a boy wishes for a girl to be spellbound and forced to give up her freedom in order to live just for him (and that’s quite literally what she does: one example is when Bear is going to work and she says she’ll wait for him - she does indeed wait for him in that same standing position, peeing and pooping on herself for hours, fighting with herself for hours. Another scene where she pretends to read a book but the book was upside down the whole time. There’s nothing more important to her than “loving” Bear, so if she’s not doing that - then she does absolutely nothing while waiting for him). It’s also obvious he does not regret it. When he calls the one wish willow company, instead of asking to cancel the wish that would save real Nikki, he wants to “alter it.”, when he hears the real Nikk’s (her soul /subconscious) through the phone and her blood-curdling screaming, he just hangs up and goes about his night. Bringing up that same scene, when the real nikki asks him to kill her, Bear asks, “what’s so bad about being with me?” (how selfless!). When he tries to kill himself, he regrets it at the last minute, proving that his character never changed. He was a greedy, egomaniacal coward from beginning to end. Additionally, his guilty consciousness shows up a few times. When the real nikki pops out the first time they kissed, Bear immediately screams, “you kissed me first!” and “you made me feel like i did something you didn’t like” as if nikki was blaming him for being some assaulter. When Nikki comes back to apologize, Bear gets nervous when Nikki reassures him that she doesn’t think he took advantage of her. Deep down, he knows what he's doing is wrong. The rape scene (which was 1000% a rape scene) was horrific to watch, as it felt like i was watching Bear fuck a dead body. Throughout the film, Bear watches Nikki go through emotional, psychotic and distressing spells. He KNOWS he’s the reason why she’s acting this way, but continues to follow his craving of being “loved” by nikki, neglecting the real nikki (who never loved him and who he never loved, leading to my next point).
- There wasn’t necessarily a demon possessing her, Bear was possessing her.
I’ve seen people talk about what entity/ demonic spirit was controlling Nikki's body. That “entity” is simply Bear’s concept of the “love” he had for Nikki. The way Nikki was acting mirrors how Bear felt and perceived her. Bear never loved her; he was obsessed with her, and Nikki was projecting his obsessiveness the entire time. Bear doesn’t even know what love is. When Nikki is talking about her writing and about wanting a romance, not a love story, Bear goes, “What’s the difference?”. Nikki’s trance was Bear’s twisted love story.
Because Bear’s love for Nikki was actually an obsession, the wish is granted by showcasing Bear's “understanding” of love through Nikki. Nikki repeatedly talks about how much she loves Bear, but her actions never show it. That’s because Bear doesn’t know how to love her, so she doesn't know how to love him either, even though she’s restrained to. Bear was obsessed with a version of Nikki and forcefully projected that onto her.
After the trance, they seemed like a perfect couple. But the moment bear started getting tired of her, that's when things got chaotic. Again, because nikki is a manifestation of his desires, once she detects that he isn’t satisfied with her “love”, she gets more and more deranged to prove to him exactly what he wished for, and she of course will do whatever it takes to prove that. Because Bear's depiction of love is distorted, the ways Nikki tries to prove it to him are also very distorted.
Other scenes that emphasize that Nikki’s trance is actually Bear’s cognition.
As soon as the trance starts and she walks back to Bear’s car, Nikki talks about losing HER cat. Bear gets confused, Nikki realizes what she said and goes, “I mean, your cat”. I think that was the first hint that shows Nikki is casting what Bear thinks. She wasn’t confused, it was just the commencement of living in Bear's thoughts and living FOR Bear’s thoughts.
When Nikki packs him lunch along with those two Polaroids, one of the photos was of Bear with the caption “you” and the other of her and Bear with the caption “not me”. A direct way of Nikki telling Bear that she is mirroring him and it isn’t the real her.
Her passion for writing is reflected in her Hansel and Gretel story as well as her elucidative rant on how she would feel being all alone in bed when Bear suggested they take a break. Those two scenes were examples of other ways the real nikki pops out other than her waking up from the bound throughout the film. The Hansel and Gretel storyline was essentially the movie's overall story. The real Nikki is indirectly telling Bear that she sees him as a brother and he still forces himself upon her. She expresses her genuine emotions through peotry.
“Freaky Nikki” - real Nikki hated that name but constantly calls herself that throughout her possession for Bears validation. Another thing is in the beginning, when Bear calls her that and Nikki says “you know I don’t like that name” and Bear admits that he did know that, but he still continued to call her it. It’s also a reflection of his inability to accept boundaries. He recognizes boundaries; again, he admits he knew Nikki hated that name and the trauma it caused, but said it anyway. This was the first subtle way in the film where Bear oversteps and violates, making both Bear and Nikki uncomfortable in that interaction. Bear making that one willow wish is an overall illustration of him overstepping and violating (controlling Nikki's autonomy), leading to both Bear and (real) Nikki being uncomfortable and hurting throughout the rest of the film.
The tiger eye that Nikki gifts Bear- A stone that signifies willpower. Nikki was essentially giving her willpower to Bear. Not that Bear didn’t already have it, but it felt like a cry from real Nikki, as she is unfortunately accepting the fact that she no longer has control over herself.
Sleeping - when Bear wakes up to find Nikki in the corner, Nikki tells him that she doesn’t like her dreams, hence why she wasn’t sleeping. I think the reason she doesn’t like her dreams is that she's battling with the real Nikki. When you sleep, your mind is still active. As mentioned before, Nikki's subconscious is active throughout her entire possession, so when “freaky” Nikki is dreaming, her dreams are of real Nikki and they're probably portraying the pain and suffering she's going through. Freaky Nikki doesn't have a mind of her own, she is a script of Bear’s wants. So when she sleeps, the real Nikki is the one in control as the subconscious mind is highly active in that state, which is also why she was able to speak to Bear even though her body was asleep.
Lowk getting tired of typing but last thing I wanna mention is people thinking Nikki is going to jail or she’ll just be traumatized for the rest of her life. Realistically, I think Nikki would've just ended up killing herself. Again, she asked bear to kill her instead of asking him to find ways to save her. Can you imagine being actively aware while having no control over your words and actions? Can you imagine watching yourself kill your friends or cut up a cat to put in a sandwich or harming yourself to escape yourself? Or seeing everyone look at you like you’re some freak when deep down you know this isn’t you talking or moving. The way her subconscious self was screaming through the phone? How can you continue living after all you’ve been through because of a stupid boy’s wish? I think if the film ended with what Nikki did after fully grasping her situation, it would have been her picking back up that gun to shoot herself after.
Please feel free to express your thoughts or other things you’ve noticed, I want to hear different opinions!