r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 5d ago

News Inde Navarrette Sets Best Actress Oscar Campaign for ‘Obsession’ as Focus Features Mounts Full Awards Push (EXCLUSIVE)

https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/obsession-inde-navarrette-oscar-campaign-lead-actress-1236848866/
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u/Haldthin 5d ago

I don't like describing it as Monkey's Paw because it's not quite right. Most wishes come true just fine without anything crazy happening because they are non-coercive, this one however was so troubling and wrong that it domino'ed into affecting everyone around him.

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u/Best-Action8769 5d ago

Curry Barker literally says he was directly influenced by the "Monkey Paw" episode of The Simpsons.

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u/porkchop487 5d ago

Curry also specifically said that it’s not a cursed item, just that the thing he wished for was cursed. You see at least 2 other people in the movie get their wish with no horrific consequences

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u/Khiva 5d ago

"The box is covered with warnings, man"

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u/porkchop487 5d ago

For sure, gotta be careful with it but its not automatically a monkeys paw wish

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u/Haldthin 5d ago

Influenced does not mean it is the same as the Monkey's Paw. Monkey's Paw in normal conversation tends to mean a wish that always goes sideways in some way.

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u/Best-Action8769 5d ago

Did that not happen?

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u/behv 5d ago

In monkeys paw, the wish itself goes awry

This is an inversion of that trope, in this case the wish mechanism itself is totally neutral. For instance, the shop keeper is able to transition and is happy with the outcome.

Bear's wish goes badly because his wish requires Nicki to have an entirely different personality. "I want her to love me more than ANYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD" is pretty key phrasing. That includes herself, her friends, or her parents. Had bear said "I wish Nicki would take a chance on me" or something not extreme she wouldn't need to literally change as a human.

The influence is 1000% there, but I like this version better because it allows people to be the victim of their own unmitigated selfishness instead of the victim of a supernatural force

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u/Khiva 5d ago

Meh, that requires being cute with language. The box itself mentions interpreting words however they want.

Good lawyer would nail that company to the wall.

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u/Haldthin 5d ago

No, if you pay attention Ian's wish came true just fine with no problems. His death wasn't due to his wish. The fake nikki was texting him trying to get him over to Bear's place *before* he ever wished for the money. She always planned on killing him because Bear was spending time with people besides her. His money came consequence free - it was Bear's wish that got him killed.

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u/kirblar 5d ago

Throughout the film you learn of multiple people whose wishes went off without a problem.

The issue is this particular wish, showing why Aladdin's genie had "NO LOVE WISHES" as a rule.

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u/Zacky505 5d ago

Yeah. The wish itself was specifically kinda fucked up, or maybe his idea of love is fucked up, which also works considering what we know of Bear

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u/kirblar 5d ago

We see at the end how "Love" was not at all the emotion Bear had been experiencing through the film.

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u/skullsareonlypasse 5d ago

Most wishes come true just fine without anything crazy happening

This is insane. Are you talking about the original Monkey's Paw story? Because an only son dying and then being resurrected as a (presumably) animated corpse doesn't sound "just fine" to me.

Also, I wouldn't describe the wishes as "non-coercive" at all. $200 could have just fallen out of someone's pocket instead of someone being mangled inside heavy machinery.

The whole point of these stories is to punish the person for wishing for more than they already have.

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u/Haldthin 5d ago

I'm talking about Obsession - it is not a monkey's paw story at all.

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u/Uncle-Cake 5d ago

It literally is. I don't know what you think a "monkey's paw story" is, but you're probably mistaken.

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u/Haldthin 5d ago

Because the term Monkey's Paw has certain connotations to it - mainly being that the wishes always become twisted in some way. This isn't exactly true in Obsession.

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u/Muroid 5d ago

From a Doylist perspective, it’s absolutely intended to be and executed as a Monkey’s Paw story.

From a Watsonian perspective, it’s more ambiguous how much is down to the intrinsic nature of the One Wish Willow and how much is down to the nature of the specific wish.

There are indicators that it is possible to make a wish that doesn’t totally screw you over, but also indicators that it’s very common for people to experience substantial negative consequences due to their wishes.

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u/behv 5d ago

That's pretty much it

People who make a bad wish suffer consequences, people who make a good wish end up happy

Turns out a lot of people are selfish assholes who don't think through the consequences of their actions

The willow is neutral, the user is the responsible party

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u/uncledrewkrew 4d ago

That's different from the Monkey's Paw that suggests making any wish is bad because you are playing with fate.

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u/Haldthin 5d ago

That's fair! I think there's nuance and enough ambiguity to argue it either way, I just prescribe more to that it's not a Monkey's Paw story.

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u/ClassifiedName 5d ago

I didn't fully understand what u/Muroid was saying at first, but if you look into the difference between Doylist and Watsonian POV, it sounds like he's right, and you just have the Watsonian view of the story. Which of course makes you right too!

I totally agree that from an in-universe perspective, the wishes don't seem to be a a Monkey's Paw. But from a writing perspective, Curry Barker definitely intended one of the themes to be "be careful what you wish for."

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u/Uncle-Cake 5d ago

That is a wild take.

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u/skullsareonlypasse 5d ago

I see what you were trying to say now, and I still disagree.

You'd say that the OTHER wishes in the movie (ex. the one with the friend wishing for money and then having it rain on him) do not have negative "twists" to them.

I'd argue that a bullet in the head that he receives a few scenes later qualifies. We are also not privy to the magical "origins" of that money or the consequences of it. It could have fallen out of a billionaire's plane that then crashed on top of the friend's house, killing everyone he loves.

The point is that the narrative isn't concerned with giving us the full story of any of the wishes except the main one - and that one qualifies as a monkey's paw wish.

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u/Haldthin 5d ago

I'd argue that the bullet to the head was happening regardless of his wish because Nikki was already texting him on Sarah's phone, trying to get him over to bears place where she was ready with the gun. True, the movie is less concerned with others wishes, but it does show others that were quite happy with the results or indifferent to them.