#TIFF25: “OBSESSION” REVIEW

By David Baldwin

Bear (Michael Johnston) has been pining for Nikki (Inde Navarrette) for a long time. He is unsure if she has similar feelings and is too nervous and indecisive to tell her how he really feels. So, with the help of a mysterious wooden trinket, Bear wishes that Nikki would fall madly in love with him. Rather suddenly, his wish comes true and the two become the couple Bear always wished they would be. But weird things start happening and Bear quickly realizes that he might not want what he wished for.

What follows is something I can only properly describe as batshit crazy and certifiably deranged. I had heard some insane things going into my screening of Editor/Writer/Director Curry Barker’s feature-length directorial debut OBSESSION earlier this week and shrugged them off as festival hyperbole. What a wild surprise it was for me to realize the hyperbole was actually downplaying how unpredictable and bonkers this film becomes after it puts our two lead characters in place for the madness and viciously gnarly violence to come. I do not want to spoil the fun, but this is a movie tailor made for the Midnight Madness crowd and it should shock absolutely no one that it got picked up for distribution so quickly.

While the scares and cringe humour are plentiful – as are the nasty gross-out moments and the at least partial deconstruction of toxic co-dependent relationships – the real joy of OBSESSION is watching Navarrette’s star-making breakout performance as Nikki, or Freaky Nikki as she loathes being called. It is multi-faceted and for lack of better terminology, almost bi-polar in nature. She switches tones and emotions on the fly, often within the same breath, and goes to some positively haunting and downright devastating places over the course of this journey through Hell. The physicality Navarrette brings to the performance is intense, and the way she captivates even in the freakiest of circumstances is a thing of beauty. Johnston is very good too, but his work here is not what is going to have you keeping the lights on after experiencing OBSESSION. 

OBSESSION screens at TIFF ‘25:

Fri. Sept 5 at 11:59 PM at Royal Alexandra Theatre

Sat. Sept 6 at 6:15 PM at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto

Thurs. Sept 11 at 6:00 PM at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto