In recent years, relationship films have increasingly explored the destructive extremes of love and control. Just last year, Drew Hancock’s Companion and Michael Shanks’s Together both explored dark corners of relationships where toxicities mixed with insecurities run rampant. The trend has continued into 2026 with Wuthering Heights, and most recently with Curry Barker’s Obsession – a perfectly made, stomach-twisting experience that makes us thankful for all those wishes that never came true.
At some point in everyone’s lives, we hear the phrase, “be careful what you wish for” – a layered morality tale where our desires become so strong that we lose our sense of reality. When it comes to the dating world, wishing for the perfect partner in theory sounds ideal. But where does wishing for perfection overrule the agency of another? Obsession is more than just the title of this disturbing rom-com, it’s the beating heart of the film. Seeped into every inch of the story, infatuation becomes deadly, especially when what’s real and what’s fake become increasingly harder to determine.
Barker’s debut film takes audiences into the life of Bear (Michael Johnston), who now lives in his grandmother’s home, inheriting it from her after her death. The film opens with him pouring his heart out to someone he wants to ask out on a date, only it’s a practice round for the real thing. He and his friend and coworker, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), debate when the right time is for Bear to finally ask out Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette). Instantly, Bear comes off as an unassuming, awkward guy who yearns for someone to love him, and only him.
Slyly, the script for Obsession gets even better the further removed you are from viewing the film. Bear thinks the world of Nikki, although he has an incredibly hard time expressing this to her. When Barker lets audiences see Nikki through Bear’s perspective, what starts as a crush gets more serious. Yet Nikki is more mysterious to the viewer, and there are sides to her that Bear hasn’t learned yet.
The film operates on some plane of mysticism, and it works terrifyingly well when it’s met on its level through the “One Wish Willow,” an item Bear picks up at a local crystal shop. The box indicates instructions for the user to make a wish and break the willow stick inside. What first appears to be a gimmick gift alters Nikki and Bear’s lives in deeply disturbing ways. In a moment of frustration with himself, Bear wishes for Nikki to essentially be obsessed with him, as he obviously is with her. While it works, one has to wonder if being yourself and getting rejected would’ve been less painful.
Nikki evolves into a love-crazed wrecking ball, and the stories she tells Bear after the wish don’t add up to what both Ian and Sarah (Megan Lawless), another one of their coworkers, know about her. It reveals that Bear has no real idea who Nikki is outside of the version of her he’s created in his head. As their relationship grows increasingly volatile, Nikki is the one who is blamed. Though Bear is the one who drove her to this yandere-esque madness, where every day her feelings for Bear only intensify. Her life prior wasn’t ideal, but at least it was hers. For any woman who has been accused of being the “crazy girlfriend” in a toxic relationship, Obsession is a giant mirror being held up in the faces of the boyfriends who drove them there.
There’s a great amount of grisly creativity in Obsession, from using bricks to bash someone’s face in, to feeding a loved one questionable meat, and even the use of bodily fluids. Each shows the lengths one goes to prove love, even if it has to be self-inflicted. One of the moments that stands out the most in terms of disturbance doesn’t involve blood or guts, but shows Nikki standing in the same spot all day, waiting for Bear to come home. Even when she has to use the bathroom, soiling herself repeatedly.
Each character in Obsession comes across as completely authentic. But where my stomach was completely in knots was Navarrette’s portrayal of Nikki, and what she was expressing through her physicality. Her performance evokes a possessed nature, where her mind and body no longer feel like hers. One moment, she goes from gleeful admiration for her partner to hiding in the shadows, shrieking and twisting her body in uncomfortable ways. Completely in control of her face, Navarrette shows just how cruel this wish is; even when she smiles, there’s a terror behind her eyes. Not just a standout horror performance in recent memory, Navarrette cements herself as giving one of the best performances of the entire year.
Though Nikki’s not the only character in Obsession that is worthy of praise, Johnston matches Navarrette’s energy, making their interactions nearly impossible to predict. But Johnston highlights a young man who is insecure with expressing his feelings and shows how isolated he is. Perfectly capturing that kind of attitude of a guy whose only friends are people who are forced to be around him for a paycheck. While Tomlinson and Lawless have much less screen time, their performances are essential to grounding the film. Both play concerned friends, though with ulterior motivations, and they both get their moments to shine within the story.
From Obsession‘s sharp script and moving performances, the film’s use of lighting and framing hold just the same amount of power. Nikki is often shown in dark lighting post-wish-making, where only glimpses of her expression can be seen. It’s hard to look away, a gaze that draws you in if you look too long. Even when she’s not the focal point of the scene, cinematographer Taylor Clemons shows she’s never far from Bear. Placing her in the background when Bear speaks to anyone who isn’t her, with her eyes locked in his direction. Barker and Clemons do an immaculate job of making her appear artificially there, a void of her former self.
Barker’s debut film is nothing short of a horror masterpiece, directing, writing, and editing a film that propels itself into best-of-the-year status. With knock-you-off-your-feet performances from Navarrette and Johnston, Obsession is a gnarly examination of control, obsession, and autonomy within relationships.
