Obsession: Every Plot Question Explained

If you have plot questions about Obsession, this is the article for you. I’m going to address as many of them as I can. If you still have a question, leave a comment at the bottom of the page. I’ll answer. For the thematic analysis, click here.

Answers to Obsession plot questions

Why is Bear pretending to talk to Nikki at the diner?

Bear had confided in Ian that he likes Nikki and wants to tell her how he feels. Initially, it seems like Ian set this up to help Bear work through what he would say to Nikki, since Bear is a nervous person. Later, Obsession reveals Ian and Nikki have secretly hooked up for two years. Once we know that, it recontextualizes Ian’s actions throughout the film. You can read him as trying to undermine Bear in order to keep Nikki to himself. 

Who is the girl playing Nikki?

We never see her again. She just seems to be someone who is outside the core group of Ian, Bear, Nikki, and Sarah. 

Why does Ian tell Bear to bring up Freaky Nikki?

Ian likes Nikki so he wants to sabotage Bear. There are a lot of little moments throughout the film that give this away. Bear asks Ian not to come to trivia night one time so Bear can have alone time with Nikki and Ian makes the excuse that he loves trivia night, that it’s all he has. Really, he just doesn’t want to give Bear the opportunity to be alone with Nikki.

What happened to Bear’s cat?

After Bear discovers Sandy, he walks into the kitchen and we hear him say “How did you get into these?” By “these” he means the bottle of Oxycodone pills. What probably happened is Bear left the pills on the counter without properly closing the lid. Sandy would have jumped up, knocked the bottle off the counter, then chowed down on a pill or five. 

What’s strange is the state of the kitchen. There’s an open bag of cat food spilled onto the floor next to Sandy’s bowl. Then two empty cans of wet cat food a few feet away. Sandy definitely couldn’t open the canned food herself. So that means Bear had opened those cans then left them out. If he left out the cans, does that mean he left out the dry food? If he left out the cans and the dry food, he probably also left out the pills. 

Ultimately, all of this speaks to his carelessness. He’s not an evil person who tortures his cat. Instead, he’s just a selfish person who was doing a bad job of taking care of his cat. 

This actually foreshadows the terrible job he’ll do of taking care of Nikki once she’s his responsibility.

Who did the pills belong to?

Bear’s grandma had cancer. The Oxy and other various medications in the cabinet belonged to her. 

The photo strip during the opening credits

I just wanted to highlight the character dynamics. In the first image, Bear tries to play around with Nikki but she’s wearing sunglasses and a mask. In the second photo, he tries to smile with her but she gives the camera the finger. He’s also slightly leaning towards her while she’s not really engaging with him. In the third photo, Nikki happily clings to Ian. And in the fourth photo, Sarah stretches all the way across the frame to be closer to Bear. Also in that fourth photo, Nikki and Ian are close while there’s a gap between Bear and Nikki. 

The photo strip reflects the group dynamics we’ll see throughout the film. Sarah wants Bear, Bear wants Nikki, Nikki and Ian are doing their own thing. 

Was Nikki being sarcastic when she said Bear works so hard? 

I think so, yeah. Nikki, Ian, and Sarah all work the same job as Bear, so she knows everything he does in a day. So when he says he needed a day off, she’s ribbing him a little bit. If you have a glass half full view, then Nikki’s being sarcastic be in a fun, flirty way, like Ian was telling Bear about at the diner and Bear just doesn’t pick up on it. Glass half empty view would be that Nikki’s just a little mean to Bear. 

What does Nikki want to tell Bear?

Nikki saying she wants to tell Bear sounds has the energy of kids in middle school and high school. There’s that adolescent hope that Nikki will tell him she likes him and then they’ll date. That’s what Bear hopes. And Nikki has to be aware of that, in some way. Later, she tells him that she’s leaving the music store, meaning they’ll no longer see each other as often. The question is is she just telling him this as a friend or is she telling him in the hopes that he’ll make a move?

Does Nikki actually like Bear?

Curry Barker and Indie Nevarrette purposefully toyed with the idea of whether Nikki likes Bear or not. They actually filmed different versions of the scene where Bear takes Nikki home. In one version, Navarrette played it as if Nikki liked Bear and was encouraging him. In the other version, she acted as if Nikki wasn’t interested in Bear. Barker then spliced together those takes. So some of Nikki’s dialogue is from the “I like Bear” version and other parts are from the “I don’t like Bear” version. That recreates for the audience the same insecurity and confusion about the situation that Bear has. 

Why does Bear buy the One Wish Willow?

Bear went into the Green Man gift shop to buy a crystal for Nikki after she dropped hers down the drain while they were on the phone. Instead, he just purchases the One Wish Willow. So he starts off wanting to do something nice for her and ends up choosing something for himself. That’s Bear in a nutshell. Like with his cat, he’s not an actively evil or bad person, he’s just selfish in a way that makes him careless about how his actions affect others. 

I know, I know, he thinks he’s going to give the One Wish Willow to Nikki as a gag gift. But I think deep down we all know he wanted it for himself. 

Why does the store sell One Wish Willows if they know the damage they cause?

We’re getting into unproductive territory here. Movies like this are representative rather than literal. You can spend time picking apart the logic of the universe, but, ultimately, the film isn’t concerned with the literal aspects of the One Wish Willow. It’s just a mechanism through which the film can explore ideas of control, consent, and willpower. 

Like in The Babadook, you can get caught up on how this demonic book exists in the first place and how it made its way to this family. Or you can accept the monster is a metaphor for unprocessed grief. The book is just a way to introduce that concept in a unique way that adds to the tone. 

Why does Nikki give money to the unhoused person?

The film needs to establish her character in these early portions. So her giving the guy $20 establishes that she’s a thoughtful person. It endears the audience to her and shows Bear admiring her as a person. 

The payoff here is that later we realize that Bear doesn’t care about Nikki as a person. Wish Nikki is nothing like regular Nikki. But Bear’s okay with it because all he wants is the idea of Nikki. When real Nikki breaks through and asks him for help, he abandons her. 

We’re also supposed to think what a loss it is that someone like Nikki, who seemed kind, fun, and full of life, loses all of that potential because of Bear’s selfish decision.  

What’s the difference between a romance and a love story?

Hallmark movies are romances. A romance focuses on the couple and the build up to them ending up together. It’s a specific type of genre story. 

Love stories have less genre rules. Atonement is a love story where two people in love could have had a life together if not for a war and a lie. Obsession is a love story about what happens when love goes wrong. It’s very much not a romance. 

“When I have a crush on a guy, no one knows.” So Nikki likes Bear?

Nikki saying that line right before getting out of the car does make it seem like she’s asking Bear to have some confidence and tell her he likes her because she likes him. It’s part of what we discussed earlier in terms of Indie playing the scene two ways. There are moments that clearly make it seem like all Bear has to do is speak up. The ball is on the tee. Swing the bat. 

Why doesn’t Bear tell Nikki that he likes her?

Bear lacks confidence. And that makes him afraid of direct engagement. So he constantly avoids saying anything honest or being himself around Nikki out of the fear that she’ll run away. 

I think most of us have felt like Bear before, which makes it easy to identify with him, to root for him. Especially in contrast to Ian. 

In a romance, Bear would find the confidence he needs at the key moments and slowly win Nikki over. He’d become a better version of himself over the course of the film. 

Barker’s aware of that which is why he gives Bear opportunity after opportunity to say what he needs to say. Bear failing to seize any of those chances turns his behavior from shy and nervous to straight up cowardice. And it turns Bear from someone we want to root for to someone we start to think less and less of. 

That’s Obsession’s actual twist: Bear is the villain, not Wish Nikki. He’s a toxic nice guy who takes underhanded measures to get what he wants, as opposed to the classic jerk who is direct and forceful. Both the toxic nice guy and classic jerk act selfishly, they just go about it in different ways. 

Is Nikki possessed? What does the One Wish Willow do to her?

Barker has confirmed it’s not possession. There’s not some spirit that’s in Nikki that won’t leave. Nothing supernatural like that. Essentially, it’s like an entirely new personality emerges and takes control of Nikki. It reminds me of Get Out and how Chris’s consciousness goes to the sunken place. Nikki’s normal “self” is still in her body, watching everything, feeling everything, aware of everything. But the “wish” psyche is the one in charge of her body. So it’s similar in concept to possession but not the same thing. 

The larger point is that Bear causes Nikki to lose her autonomy, willpower, and ability to consent. Then he takes advantage of her. There’s a clear metaphor for r***. 

Why does Wish Nikki make the shrine for the cat?

One of the characteristics of Wish Nikki is that she doesn’t quite understand human interaction or culture. The reason for that is unclear. It makes it seem like there really is a possession going on and this “other” is learning things about humans but getting it wrong sometimes. But since we know there isn’t a supernatural element it’s probably more so that the wish makes it hard for Nikki’s brain to work properly, meaning some things get lost in translation. 

What is GenieLM?

We see Bear’s laptop screen is on an AI chat. It’s called GenieLM. In myths, genies grant wishes. So the name is a wink to the film’s story revolving around a wish come true. 

What’s in Bear’s AI chat history? What do we learn about Bear?

• Yesterday
  • Classic romance movies
  • How to play green day’s basket case on the marimba
• Last 7 Days
  • How to woo a girl
  • How to impress a girl
  • How to flirt
  • How to know if you’ve been friend zoned
• July
  • Oxycodone
• June
  • Nursing homes
  • Old people homes

This tells us that Bear’s grandma probably went into a nursing home sometime in June. And that either she started taking Oxycodone then or that Bear discovered it in the medicine cabinet and started using it himself. 

The last seven days show he’s started fixating a bit more strongly on Nikki. The “classic romance movies” search seems inspired by Nikki’s comment about writing a love story. And “Basket Case” is such a Bear-coded song. The first line is, “Do you have the time to listen to me whine.” 

Was Nikki on molly?

I don’t think so. Even though Nikki says that, it’s Wish Nikki trying to make Bear feel better about what happened. But the introduction of the idea does two things. First, it maintains the idea that maybe the wish didn’t work and there’s some realistic explanation for Nikki’s behavior. So the audience stays leaned-forward, trying to analyze all of Nikki’s behavior. 

Second, it tells us what a realistic version of this story looks like. In that version, a young woman goes out with friends, thinks she’s safe, gets intoxicated, and the “nice guy” takes advantage of her. She then struggles to accept what happened and tries to convince herself it was romantic rather than assault. This disassociation and denial is actually common in victims. For a full breakdown of how Obsession develops this theme and what it means, click here. 

Notice how the conversation when Nikki shows up at Bear’s door revolves around her saying “You didn’t take advantage of me.” That’s priming the viewer to understand that Bear is about to take advantage of her, because Wish Nikki is still Nikki in an altered state. She can’t consent. 

Why did Nikki lie about her dad having cancer?

Because it was Wish Nikki pulling out all the stops to get Bear’s attention/sympathy. In the scene where the wish first activates, we see her attempt a view different avenues to spend more time with Bear. She invites him in, then tries to comfort him about his cat, then, since that failed, pivots to her dad being sick. When that works, she keeps the ruse going because all she cares about is Bear liking her.

Nikki says “Then why does it matter?”

This moment is one of the crossroads for Bear as a character. At this point, Bear knows his wish is working, that Nikki only loves him because he forced her to. And he knows Nikki lied about her dad having cancer. When he confronts Wish Nikki about her dad, Wish Nikki says, “I thought we were having a nice date.” Bear says, “We are.” Then she hits him with the “Then why does it matter?”

That question isn’t just about her dad and that moment but the entire situation. Bear wanted Nikki to love him. Now “Nikki” does. Do the details really matter?