Obsession

Brooklyn-born film obsessive Robbie Holmes delivers his 1er™ on Obsession — Curry Barker's micro-budget phenomenon that cost $750,000 to make and has already crossed $200 million worldwide.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Letterboxd Review: https://boxd.it/eB1c97 

🎙️ Full episode: https://geekonfilm.com/podcasts/obsession

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Robbie Holmes Instagram | Bluesky | Letterboxd

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey there, folks. Welcome to my Wonder About Obsession, Curry Barker's movie that has taken the internet by storm. Uh, so our friends over at IMDB have this as After breaking the mysterious one-wish willow to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for, but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark and sinister price. This was written by and directed by Curry Barker. Um let's jump over to my review on Letterboxed. So I gave this four stars and a heart. I saw it a little bit ago, uh, but I still feel this way. So I want to start off with I wasn't sure I was gonna see this movie, but the critical mass of reviews and the sheer volume of positivity that has been on the internet, which is generally not a beacon of positivity, was unbelievable. Curry Barker is so absolutely confident making this movie. You can tell that they've spent a lot of reps on YouTube creating and cultivating their approach to filmmaking. This movie does not work without the amazing casting of Indy Navarette. She is the focal point of the lead character's obsession and is also the reason to see this movie. She has a puckish nature and a hardened innocence that is reminiscent uh, for me, a little bit of Anachendrick. What a cool cinema experience. So I mentioned the Cinexer, it's because I saw it like two and a half weeks into its run, and the theater was still packed. Uh, there's probably about 80% of the seats filled when I saw it, and uh, it seems to be just hanging in there. It's really pretty impressive. Um, let's talk about its box office. So, as of right now, uh Obsession has made yet. So, today I'm gonna out myself. Today is June 9th. Uh, this movie has made a total of 151 million dollars domestically and another 57 million internationally, which makes it's worldwide over 200 million dollars. This movie cost 750 grand to make. It's pretty impressive. I cannot imagine anything with this kind of return. Anything, this is such a unique and creative film, but the rollout and the how this film has taken off is unbelievable. So it went up weekend after weekend from its opening to its second to its third, and then it went down 9% or something like that to its fourth weekend. Um, this movie just keeps trucking, and uh Focus Features has basically, I think, pulled it off of its uh release schedule for premium VOD. So I don't know how long it's gonna stay in theaters, but my guess is this movie cracks 300 million uh internationally, and that would make it, I think, the most profitable movie of all time. Um, it's really unbelievable uh as a movie. I had such a good time with it, and it really is kind of a forehander. So the movie focuses on Michael Johnson's bear, the main character, uh, who is completely obsessed with his friend Nikki, who they work with. They uh there are four friends, they all work at this uh music store, they sell instruments and other stuff. Uh so the four friends include Ian, who is played by Cooper uh Tomlinson, and Sarah, who's played by Megan Lawless. So the foursome is tight in a we are friends who work to we are we are work friends, uh and it spills out from work friends to other things, it seems like. Um, but in the end, this is one of the most unique uh story stories of this time. I feel like uh no one's captured what it feels like to have work friends like this in a long time. Um, and I think this is pretty new in this space. I watch a lot of movies, and to just see sort of the dynamics of the people who work together. You know, I mentioned the four four actors. Uh we find out throughout the movie that there's other interconnections, but Sarah has seemingly has a crush on Bear. Uh, Bear has a crush on Nikki, and apparently Ian and Nikki are sleeping together, which we find out throughout the movie. Um, so spoilers. I this movie is all spoilers. There's really no way to talk about this movie without spoilers. Um, but the movie opens with us finding out that Bear is living in his grandmother's house. Uh, we see that his cat has died by eating pills that were his grandmother's. And uh I think the illusion is that he's taking those pills to calm himself, and he's not really dealing with his feelings or what's going on. He is sort of obsessed with his co-worker and uh doesn't know how to deal with it. The movie opens with uh this really amazing him direct to camera uh declaring his love. And it turns out that his friend Ian has put him up to uh practicing with a waitress at a diner. And it is one of the most uncomfortable and funny things I've seen in a long time. Um, Bear's not good from the beginning. Uh, he he is a person who does not uh have the ability to communicate with people when they're opening doors. Um, you know, the before all this happens, like we we see he's dealing with the death of his cat. Uh Nikki checks on him because she's a friend and that's what she does. And there's this looming possibility of like, does Nikki like Bear? Does she not like Bear? Are they just friends? So, and I think what we found out later is that Curry Barker had Indy record or act in two different ways, where she likes Bear and where she doesn't, and then mix the two together in the edit so that we don't know. And I think that's brilliant. Little things like that that don't cost any more money, but make this movie so much better. And uh so they all go out and they go to what is it? They go to a bar. No, they go to trivia and then they're gonna go on to do karaoke, and Nikki and Bear decide not to go. Bear offers a ride home. He takes Nikki home. She very pointedly, after they're sitting there talking for a few minutes, he says he has a present for her. She had complained about losing her necklace down a at the drain, and he went to this shop before this, where he saw crystals, thought she would hate this, and then found this one wish willow, sort of a box. It's a gimmicky toy that um, you know, you make a wish, you crack the stick, everything uh comes true. Uh so in this conversation, uh, he said he had something for her. She comes back and like double checks in with him and says, like, do you have feelings for me? And he doesn't admit it. He's like, We're friends, and you know, that's what it is. And then as she walks away, he like really gets mad at himself and he reaches in his bag, pulls out the one wish willow, and he wishes that Nikki uh loved him more than anybody else on the earth. Uh, verbiage. It's exactly that idea, but it's a wish that basically means that nothing else matters to Nikki. Um, and we see this sort of transformation happen immediately. She's standing on her front porch. It's the um, it's the background right now on letterboxed, and uh she comes back to the car and you see her sort of making up a story. She says that like her cat died, and she's confused a little bit, and then there's this like moment that she snaps, and it's you see, I think the real Nikki return. She's like, I'm acting so weird, I don't understand this. So there's this back and forth that we see almost immediately without realizing that you know Nikki is sort of strapped inside of her own body while this wish is taking hold. And God, this movie goes in so many places that I can't imagine someone I can't, I couldn't have pictured the story. I think it's so smart. It's really a monkey paw story. And I think that uh Curry Barker talked about the fact that you know the Simpsons episode that takes place uh during one of the Halloween horrors, the monkey's paw episode, is the thing that sort of uh he used as a reference point, but it's amazing that that is a modern reference point where the stories about the monkey's paw have been around since the 1800s. But all this being said, uh here we are. Nikki is now uh obsessed with Bear, makes him take her back to his uh take her back to his place. Um and it just really devolves. It it goes, you know, all over the place. Nikki um seems completely obsessed. There's a montage where it seems like it's almost like a rom-com, but it's a little off. Like they're watching television and Nikki can't stop looking at Bear, and Bear turns her face towards the TV. So there's all these little things where it seems like Nikki's happy, um, but it's not right. And that that not rightness, I think, is what this movie captures so well. There's a little bit of like violence at one point. They they go to a group party, and uh, you know, we see that there's like a Jenga game that has got all these things written on the Jenga pieces, and it eventually leads to Bear switching seats and sitting next to Sarah, and then um Bear pulls the Jenga piece that says he has to kiss the person to his left. And Nikki gets up and walks over and drags Sarah's chair out of the way and puts herself in that place and kisses Bear. It's weird and it's uncomfortable, and like everybody's feeling it. And then Nikki uh picks up a bottle and smashes it on a table and and smashes it into her face. Um, you know, this is this erratic behavior continues and continues getting worse and worse and worse. And uh I really dug it, man. I don't want to spoil the last 30 minutes of the movie because I do think it's worth seeing. And if it's still in a theater and you get a chance to see it, you should. Um, I can't wait to own this um and have in my theater. I just purchased a obsession poster to go in that theater. I can't wait uh to rep it for a little while, but um you should see this movie. You should be impressed by what Curry Barker has pulled off. Uh the behind-the-scenes footage and how practical and pragmatic so much of this stuff was, how it was done, is really impressive. Um, I cannot get over how good this movie is. I didn't expect it. I it kind of blew me away. And I'm just rambling on about how much I enjoyed this. Um, we are in a really weird and interesting spot where some of these movies are taking off in ways that it it almost feels like didn't need the big studio system. Uh, apparently we had sort of a bidding war that was going on for obsession between A24, Focus Features, and I forget who the third one was. Um, but in the end, he decided to go with Focus, from what we understand, because it had worldwide distribution. That's pretty cool. Like Curry was thinking ahead, and he had apparently staged out all the rights when he was creating the film and worked with the producers to make sure that that was the case. So, not just like an interesting and smart movie, but an interesting and smart like pre-previous to its marketing and to its final release, um, seems like Curry had a distribution plan in place and was really thinking it about uh thinking about all these things, which is awesome. I can't believe that um this movie exists, I can't believe it its success. I can't believe not being allure to A24 for this type of film, like just saying this is an A24 film, could have gotten it, you know, it uh without realizing what it was going to do, it would have at least given it that cachet. But the fact that Focus Features believed in this film and has has pushed it worldwide and has done a great job with it. Um, but it also helps that you have Indy, who is out there being charming and and all over the place and has been on everything. I mean, her Jimmy Kimmel appearance has already, I've seen like it clipped and reclipped like dozens and dozens of times because she tells a funny story about her 18th birthday, and like she is a bit chaotic and a bit funny, and she's cute, and like boy, is she a marketing person's dream. And uh it seems like she's having a great time. And everybody in the cast, all the interviews you've seen with the whole group are really fun, and Curry Parker's really smart, and he knows how to talk about his films, and he knows um how to leave a little bit um unsaid, and I think that's really cool. Um, I really like this movie. If you get a chance, you should see it in a theater before it goes away. Um yeah, talk to you soon. Probably for disclosure day. I'm seeing it Thursday night. Go to the movies. Thanks.

unknown 12:52

Bye.