Michael Johnston stars as Bear, Megan Lawless as Sarah and Cooper Tomlinson as Ian in “Obsession.”Focus Features
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Unfortunately, it’s the plot that gets “Obsession” into trouble. This is a movie about the sexes that wants to have its cake and eat it, too. The screenplay tries to say something about female autonomy and male selfishness, yet the film plays like an overlong, 108-minute riff on the old reliable stand-up routine subject “girlfriends be crazy” that never subverts the trope. The depths that Nikki (Inde Navarrette) sinks to in her obsessive quest to own her beloved Bear (Michael Johnston from MTV’s “Teen Wolf”) are not for the faint-hearted (or for cat lovers, either — you’ve been warned).
It’s actually not the real Nikki enacting such actions as duct-taping doors to keep her beloved inside, or going all “Titus Andronicus” on him with a sandwich stuffed with a surprisingly nasty ingredient. It’s the entity Nikki was transformed into after sad sack incel Bear wished on a cheap novelty item called the “One Wish Willow.” (In a clever marketing move, Focus Features handed out “One Wish Willows” to critics at the New York City screening. Nobody wanted to break them!)
Inde Navarrette stars as Nikki and Michael Johnston as Bear in “Obsession.”Focus Features
Apparently made by the same company that supplied Aunt Gladys with her killer twigs in “Weapons,” the “One Wish Willow” grants Bear’s wish that the crush who has friend-zoned him will love him “more than anything else in the world.” What he probably meant was that he wishes Nikki would suddenly want to have oodles of hot sex with him, and then, to quote yet another sexist stand-up comedy joke, she’d turn into a six-pack and a pizza afterward.
Only the first part of that scenario happens. Immediately, Nikki gets insatiably horny for Bear. Then, she turns possessive, before becoming the literal embodiment of his wish: she loves him more than anything else in the world. And nobody’s going to stand in her way, including their mutual friends, Ian (Barker’s “that’s a bad idea” YouTube comedy sketch partner, Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless). They notice something suspicious about Nikki, especially when she abruptly goes from friend-zoning Bear to jumping his bones with reckless abandon.
When Bear calls the “One Wish Willow” hot line for help after things go horribly awry, he’s routed to what sounds like the same call center Demi Moore got sent to when she called for assistance in “The Substance.” As in that film, there is no sympathy on the other side of the phone.
Inde Navarrette stars as Nikki and Michael Johnston as Bear.Focus Features
It’s to Barker’s credit that he doesn’t let Bear completely off the hook, or make him very likable despite Johnston’s perpetual hangdog look. But he also doesn’t do much to make Nikki a real person, either. There are occasional reminders that the real Nikki is robbed of autonomy and trapped in this film’s version of the Sunken Place from “Get Out” — her screams are bloodcurdling — but it’s still visibly her committing the film’s atrocities. “Obsession” really trips over itself in the last act as it tries to balance the audience’s loyalties.
Navarrette gives a fearless performance, bouncing from one extreme to another while attempting to remind us that she’s possessed by a force beyond her control. Even if you agree with me that “Obsession” doesn’t work, you won’t forget Navarrette. She’s a powerhouse from the earliest scenes of faux romantic comedy to the grim finale. The performance almost saves the movie.
Though the comparisons to “Fatal Attraction” are apt, the movie “Obsession” reminded me of most was Takashi Miike’s 1999 horror shocker, “Audition.” That movie also had a “nice guy” doing something less than wholesome in order to get a woman. If you’ve seen that movie, you know what you’re in for here, though Miike’s film feels more honest (and is less of a crowd-pleaser) than this one.
If Curry Barker’s name sounds familiar, you may have seen his low-budget horror film “Milk & Serial,” a found footage/serial killer movie he and Tomlinson made for $800. I thought that was a clever director’s calling card for Barker, and I wanted to see what he did next. My “One Wish Willow” wish for that didn’t backfire as badly as Bear’s, because “Obsession” isn’t a complete disaster.
★★½
OBSESSION
Written and directed by Curry Barker. Starring Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless. At Coolidge Corner, AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 108 min. R (things get very, very nasty)
An earlier version of this story misstated which company gave out willow twigs to promote the film. It was Focus Features. The Globe regrets the error.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.
