Mild spoilers ahead for one of the hottest movies and biggest surprises of 2026, Obsession. I have been wanting to see Obsession for awhile now. To the point I thought it was a direct to streaming release and was searching for it a month or two before it came out. So I was excited to see it and paid the cost to buy it last night. It was $5 more than renting and that $5 was good children insurance incase the movie became too difficult to watch.
It didn’t and I was able to finish it but I started the movie feeling a generation gap for the first time ever watching a movie. It starts with a familiar scene. Two guy friends together with one coaching up the other on how to talk to a girl he likes. It is a tale as old as time and a scene that has played out across multiple genres and I don’t think it is a coincidences that Obsession shared filming locations with Wayne’s World, another movie that featured a dream girl.
It was through the next scenes I started to feel the generation gap. One of the ongoing criticisms of Gen Z is that they don’t know how to have real human relationships, particularly intimate ones, and while a quad of friends equally divided by gender with mismatched romantic interest is also familiar the way they interacted felt like a generation thing to me.
The two main subjects of the film are Bear, a deeply insecure and socially immature guy working at a local music store, and his co-worker and object of unrequited love or lust, Nikki. The main plot of the movie really kicks off after an evening the four friends spend together. Earlier in the day Bear had gone to a crystal shop and when he couldn’t find some lapis lazuli for his crystal girlie he gets himself a novelty wishing willow.
At the end of the night Nikki gives Bear the flashing neon greenlight to discuss his feelings for her and he chickens out. In a moment of instant regret and FOMO he makes his wish and things quickly spiral out of control. At this point I felt Bear was controlled far more by his insecurity than anything else and also a bit of frustration with Nikki for not forcing the conversation. We don’t see a lot of the real Nikki in the movie so it is hard to say if she was taking advantage of Bear’s feelings for her, truly valued their friendship, or had mutual feelings for him that neither acted on.
It was during the next scenes that I felt a real generational gap and I will say that if this was a film made by millennials it would be a Jud Apatow comedy called, Dude Where’s My Nikki, where the four friends all try and cure Nikki of her obsession in a road trip full of hijinks and adventure where Bear and Sarah slowly realize the love they have for each other.
That isn’t what happens. Instead Nikki practically throws herself at Bear and having never been with a women before and not knowing what to do with one he ends up sleeping on the floor in some false act of gentlemanliness. Again I understand the movie but just felt a generational disconnection from the motivations and actions of the characters. There is also a millennial version that is far more horrific where Bear’s insecurity falls away when he gets what he wants and he becomes much more of an obvious villain than he is. I would have understood those motivations.
At the end of the day Obsession is a great film and Inde Navarrette deserves every award she gets, but throughout the movie I felt a strange disconnect from the characters. Not because they were poorly written or acted but because I am getting old.
David Huzzard Writes 