Wishing for love seems honorable, but when that wish dissolves the work that makes love real, it becomes a distortion of love. In Curry Barker’s Obsession, Bear wishes that his coworker and long-time friend, Nikki, would love him more than anyone in the world. Almost immediately there are inconsistencies with the version of Nikki that Bear has wished into existence and the friend Bear had before.
Bear has multiple instances where he should undo his wish and free Real Nikki. He fails to undo his wish during any of these instances, only attempting once it’s too late.
How To Break The Wish
Across the whole movie, Real Nikki is only able to regain control of her body for a few seconds at a time. This leaves Bear as the only one who can rescue her from the effects of the wish.
The mechanisms of breaking the wish are laid out most clearly when Bear revisits The Green Man, the store where he originally bought the One Wish Willow. Here, the cashier lays out that because of the nature of Bear’s wish, he could commit suicide to break the wish or could get someone else to make a second wish that cancels out his.
Bear has used his one wish already, and as the packaging says “You only get one wish!” This means he cannot wish away Nikki loving him, but someone else could if their wish directly contradicts his. As long as the new wish has no way to exist with Bear’s original wish, it would be undone.
In the suicide route there is no way for Nikki to continue to love him, so she would be lifted from the wish’s effects.
The final method is killing Nikki. This method is brought up by Real Nikki when begging Bear to end her suffering.
The most favorable of these options is overriding the wish, which is what Bear eventually tries, though he should have done so sooner. There are three distinct moments when he should realize that Nikki is not herself, all of them stemming from Real Nikki breaking through the façade.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
The same night that Bear makes his wish, Nikki convinces Bear to take her home. He offers her the bedroom and stands in the doorway talking to her. Nikki asks Bear to sleep with her. He hesitantly agrees. When Nikki takes her top off, Bear turns away because he is surprised and guilted by how easily this is with the wish. He gets on top of the covers and sits there awkwardly. Once she gets him to loosen up more, she begins kissing him.
While they are kissing, Nikki snaps up rigidly and yells “WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK?!” while falling backwards off the bed. Bear is freaked out by this but allows himself to be convinced by Nikki’s explanation that she thought she saw something, or that it was a panic attack.
Bear is partially culpable here. He knew that Real Nikki would not be undressing in his bed under normal circumstances. Still he went along with the explanation she gave for freaking out, while not fully believing it. Adding to his culpability is the fact that he goes into work the next day and tells Ian that something is seriously wrong with Nikki. At this point he begins to gain more confidence that the One Wish Willow had something to do with it, but does not want to take responsibility for the changes to Nikki.
IT’S NOT ME!
During a party at Ian’s house, Nikki is making a scene during a party game by being very possessive of Bear. She snaps out of it and immediately looks around, taking in her surroundings before screaming “IT’S NOT ME!” She grabs a liquor bottle, breaks it on the coffee table and stabs herself in the face. She snaps back to Wish-Afflicted Nikki and apologizes to everyone laughing it off. The whole time Bear doesn’t look concerned, instead he seems guilty and embarrassed. Bear knows that this is Real Nikki coming out.
Real Nikki has two distinct goals in her short takeover of Nikki’s body. Her first goal is established by her screaming “IT’S NOT ME!” which is a cry for help to all of their friends and Bear that she only has seconds to deliver. Her other goal is ending her own suffering. This is why she grabs the bottle and begins stabbing herself in the face, only to lose control to Wish-Afflicted Nikki before she can finish her second goal.
Please Just Kill Me
As Bear is sneaking out of the bedroom to meet Sarah at the park, he hears a very gentle “Bear?” He turns. Nikki speaks again “Kill me, Bear. Please.” Bear responds confused asking what she’s talking about. Nikki says “She’s sleeping… It’s me.” We are hearing the voice of Real Nikki
In a normal volume Bear asks “you are you, Nikki?” She answers back “shh, please don’t wake her up. Just kill me.”
Bear responds “what would be so bad… What’s so bad about being with me?” Nikki answers “I’ve never been with you Bear. Just kill me please.” He continues leaving the room while Real Nikki begs “please please please”
Bear is hearing the voice of his friend Nikki breaking through the illusion he created with his wish. And despite not being able to look at her out of guilt, he takes offense that Real Nikki doesn’t want to be with him.
It’s worth mentioning that Real Nikki here is giving him the easier option out of the suicide/homicide options with her limited communication. He can still live if he kills her. She is not asking him to commit suicide despite him already taking her life in a very real way by stealing her agency to do what she wants to do. She is instead asking him to finish the job so that she is no longer suffering.
Too Little Too Late
What Happened to Sarah
When Bear meets Sarah in the park, she expresses her and Ian’s concern that Nikki may be with Bear to get back at Ian over a falling out the two had after hooking up for years. The tone shifts from Sarah expressing concern for Bear to implying that the two of them should be together instead.
Nikki breaks the driver window with her head and bashes Sarah’s face against a brick that she is holding onto the steering wheel. Nikki beats Sarah’s face to a pulp, then comforts Bear, telling him that it’s ok but that he needs to help her with the body. She also tells Bear that this is all his fault because he made the wish, but that she is so glad he did.
Nikki has shown Bear many times how much she requires his presence and him sneaking out at 3am to meet someone is bound to set her off, regardless of who it is that took him away from her. So it makes sense why Nikki would call this his fault, her attitudes are determined from the wish so Bear should have known this would upset her, though not necessarily the degree.
Any girl would pose a romantic threat, but Sarah specifically angers Nikki in a unique way. Nikki says “I know Sarah likes you” in the scene after the party. In other words, she knows that Sarah wants Bear. This is why her violence is not calm and calculated but fiery and passionate. Her method of killing Sarah is brutal as she smashes her face into the brick probably more times than necessary to finish the job, suggesting a crime of passion rather than a premeditated murder.
Make Right, or Die Trying
After Sarah has been killed, Bear returns to the crystal shop and talks with the cashier about ways to fix his wish. The shopkeep suggests specifically trying to get Nikki to override the wish. While there Bear buys multiple One Wish Willows in hopes of undoing his wish with another.
Unfortunately for Bear, Sarah was his best chance at a successful overriding wish. Sarah is the most understanding of the friends Bear has. She also loves Bear, meaning she would be more willing to take him seriously and use her wish for him, especially if it means she could end up with Bear. With her death, Ian is Bear’s last hope to end his wish without having to kill anyone else or face Wish-Afflicted Nikki.
Bear goes to Ian’s house and asks Ian to wish “[Bear] never made a wish.” Ian is not convinced by Bear’s explanation and breaks the stick saying bluntly “I wish for a billion dollars.” Dollar bills begin raining down from the ceiling while Bear stares at Ian in shock and disbelief.
Ian using his wish closes off that possibility of breaking Bear’s wish. Meaning that the remaining paths are Nikki wishing over Bear’s wish, or one of them dying. Bear clearly wants to try to get Nikki to wish over his initial wish which requires him going home.
At this point Bear is trying to undo his wish out of fear. After Nikki murders Sarah, Bear becomes scared of her. This is why he tries Ian’s house first. He does not want to confront the horror that his wish has created. It is not out of concern for Real Nikki but fear of the Nikki he has created.
Going Home
Bear goes home where he sees Sarah’s naked body in the kitchen chair and Nikki wearing her dress. Nikki also has marker on her chest mimicking Sarah’s tattoos. She puffs on a cigarette further imitating Sarah.
She asks Bear if he loves her now. Bear says no, she asks again, the same response. She grows desperate “Why don’t you love me?” then screams “WHY CAN’T YOU LOVE ME?!”
Despite all the screaming, Ian knocks and lets himself in saying that he got like a billion dollars and that it’s real. Nikki turns and shoots him in the head as he enters the room. She then threatens Bear with the same gun making him say “I love you” then demands he scream it at gunpoint.
These scenes show an escalation in Nikki’s need for control. After killing Sarah, Nikki said that she was glad Bear made the wish. This need for him to say it back, even if forced, shows an escalation from acceptance to desperation in her love for him as well as her doubt in his love for her. This makes her less rational and therefore more chaotic and dangerous.
Effective Medicine
Bear plays along with Nikki to appease her and suggests they freshen up. As he enters the bathroom, he slams the door closed which leads to a barrage of pounding on the bathroom door from Nikki and her screaming for Bear to let her in. He eventually convinces her to let him be for a minute.
He considers shooting himself, weighing his options. As he stares at himself in the reflection of the medicine cabinet he pulls out his grandmother’s pills, sits down and begins to eat them aggressively.
He has learned that there is no real chance of convincing Nikki to override his wish, leaving him with homicide or suicide. Between killing her or himself, he chooses himself. This is not driven by heroism or love, the opportunity for caring about Real Nikki has long passed. This is an act of cowardice by a man truly scared of what his friend Nikki has turned into because of his own selfishness.
Deja Vu
Just then the sound of a One Wish Willow can be heard off screen. Bear attempts to throw up the pills, then is entranced. He gets a glazed look in his eyes and walks towards the door. Him and Nikki embrace in the living room and it is clear that she wished for him to love her as much as she loves him.
This reinforces Bear as a coward. He isn’t self assured in the decision he has made, he is clearly just trying to survive Nikki at this point, who has become the real threat. When he gets up, his agency is violated in the same way Nikki’s was throughout the film. He has no real control over his body as he embraces the woman he was just petrified of seconds earlier.
This love scene is short lived though. Bear begins foaming at the mouth from the pills. Nikki is devastated, “no no no what did you do baby?” She then reaches for the gun, and puts it up to her head.
Real Nikki regains control. Looking around she finds herself covered in blood, in Sarah’s clothes, a gun in her hand pointed at her head. She sees the bodies of Ian and Sarah on the floor, and Bear dead in her lap. As anyone would, she drops the gun, pushes Bear off her and begins crying in shock and horror.
Bear only experiences the fate that Nikki has been going through this entire movie for a matter of about a minute. Nikki snapping back to life makes this really clear. This is one of the only times we have seen Real Nikki fully active since Bear’s wish. Many of her closest friends are gone and she has few clues about why they got killed.
Conclusion
Bear has multiple chances throughout the movie to do the right thing and free Real Nikki. The first time Bear ignores Real Nikki may be forgivable but by the last time she is literally telling Bear outright that she is not who he has been with and begging him to kill her.
While under the influence of Bear’s wish, Nikki kills both Sarah and Ian. Meaning the aftermath of Bear’s suicide leaves Real Nikki snapping back to find the bodies of Sarah, Ian, and Bear himself all within view.
Bear never tries to save Real Nikki for her own sake, instead keeping up his fantasy of dating Nikki by completely disregarding her as a person. His only attempt to undo the wish is because he’s worried about himself and his safety.
If he really loves Nikki he should set her free right when he realizes that she is with him against her will. Bear does not love Nikki, he loves the creation his wish made. He loves being loved, not Nikki.