u/Cute-Revolution-9705

In the film, the backrooms, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a character named Clark, a disgruntled furniture store owner who sets aside his dreams to become an architect to help support his wife through law school while also paying all the bills in the house and her education and time off. However, he’s currently being divorced from said wife because he is harbouring a resentment which comes out when he drinks alcohol.

In the last third of the movie when the backrooms makes him go insane he role plays with his therapist (who voluntarily entered the backrooms and he did not encourage nor lure her into coming into btw) and his therapist lashes out at him and says he blames the world for his problems and doesn’t take accountability. I’m not going to lie, but that kind of annoyed me. Take accountability for what?

He literally pays for everything for his wife (bills, mortgage, law school tuition, her expenses in general); he owns his own furniture store; he sets aside his dreams of being an architect to help his wife pursue hers; he’s not physically abusive; he drinks heavily, but he’s obviously highly functional; AND he literally goes to therapy…his therapist complains that he’s a whiny complainer when he’s literally paying her to listen to her. It’s so wild. What accountability is he supposed to take?

Now people will say “he tied her up” and “he trapped her” but like I mentioned. SHE chose to enter his furniture store, SHE went walking around the property, SHE clearly chose to enter a magic portal to enter a strange, alternate dimension. NO ONE lured her, entrapped her or brought her there on false pretenses. And he clearly is deranged because of the room as evidenced by the alien looking creatures surrounding him.

So moral of the story? You can be a hardworking, educated provider who sets his dreams and goals aside for your wife and not only set them aside but actively fund hers, and if you yell at her because you had too many beers and you’re stressed out and overworked you deserve to get divorced and if you decide to see a therapist for professional help you’re the bad guy who can’t handle accountability?

Personally, I love nice restaurants, museums, artsy activities and I genuinely like planning dates. I genuinely like exposing women I date to new restaurants they haven't tried and are willing to go to. I like artsy things around the city to do. However, my friend and I are having a debate and says it comes across too tryhard, and that it looks like I'm trying to impress, but what if a man genuinely likes dinner dates?

He mentioned that men should do low-key dates like walks in the park, chipotle or something basic. What are your thoughts? Female perspective encouraged as well on this post.

If someone is truly intent on falling in love in general, and not using it to target a very specific person; what are some ethical ways to ask the willow for love?

SPOILERS

As you might of heard, the movie Obsession by Gen Z youtuber Curry Barker is trending and is the second highest grossing film of 2026. I have personally seen it twice and thought it was an incredible and insightful creative work.

Basic synopsis (spoiler alert) is a young man who is infatuated with his lifelong crush makes a wish upon an enchanted magical stick that his crush would love him more than anything in the world, which results in disastrous consequences. I personally thought the film was just a tragic series of unfortunate events, rather than it pushing an agenda. He doesn't make the wish out of malice, nor is he truly aware of what he's doing, and as is evidenced in the film there's no way out of his wish other than through dying. So he made a foolish wish with nightmarish consequences with no way out.

However, through reviewing the film and watching several commentaries, I see the film as a poignant deconstruction of the male loneliness crisis. Bear is a well-meaning guy: he has his own place, his own car, he has a stable job, has close friends with both genders and generally is a pleasant guy; albeit painfully shy and cowardly. I personally viewed the character to be kind of light in the loafers, and not really "masculine" enough for the kind of girl he was trying to pull. His crush, Nikki, clearly likes confidence and traditionally masculine traits (not like in an Andrew Tate machista way, but like the guy orders a pina colada when she's ordering straight whiskey and blubbers like a schoolboy every time he speaks to her). Even his body language is like a lanky high school boy who is in his first relationship, not a man in his 20s who presumably has been through love before.

I think the premise of who Bear is at first is a fair depiction of the average love-starved Gen Z man. Who Bear is presented at in the start of the film is what the typical incel/love-challenged young man truly is. He isn't portrayed as some fat, greasy, sloppy abusive misogynist; he's depicted as an intelligent, thoughtful, decent-looking, put together guy who just struggles with confidence and love. He isn't portrayed as unrepentant scum, but a well-meaning guy set on a misguided path.

Most women viewers and commenters, however, point out that this apparently makes Bear the worst type of predator because he presents himself as a man you can trust and rely on, but has dark and sinister motives. He seems like a guy who has it reasonably put together, but just lacks confidence. However, when it is revealed that the Nikki he is dating is actually a separate personality/entity and the true Nikki is submerged in the sunken place and is constantly being tortured. Once he is aware of this, at first he tries to amend the wish to curtail her abnormal personality traits rather than just jumping straight into trying to undo the wish. Undoing the wish is secondary, and only focused on once he realizes it's unfeasible to be altered.

I agree that this is a worthy criticism of him, and he IS in the wrong for this. Another criticism is when the real Nikki emerges when the spell Nikki is asleep, and asks Bear to kill her and he responds: "is it so bad to just be with me?" A lot of female viewers HATED Bear once he said this and said this was the line that cemented him as the villain.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT on Bear's side with that statement, but my thoughts didn't go straight to abuse or control, but rather logistics and reality. How was Bear supposed to just kill her?

There was no reasonable course for Bear to take in the film, if we're being real. He made a fucked up wish (though he didn't know it would come true because he thought it was a gag toy from a New Age chakra store). He has no way of undoing it. He has to be intimate with Nikki or else she'll have a psychiatric breakdown or harm herself or others. The only way he can undo the wish is either through murder or suicide. And he does genuinely try to get someone else to make a wish to end it, but it backfires. He is clearly upset and disturbed by the destruction and carnage. Yes, he is incredibly selfish but I never got the impression he was an abusive narcassist getting a jolly out of controlling a woman.

I don't think he thought wishing for a girl to love him would result in this level of destruction and tragedy, nobody would. I think he just thought her feelings towards him would change, and she'd be the exact same, but with warmer feelings towards him. I don't think Bear is an innocent man nor is he all that good, but I don't think he is an abominable villain like he is being spoken of by fans of the film. Anyway, that was my two cents and I wrote a whole film essay, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Female posters and lurkers are free to give two cents and views:

Spoilers

As you might of heard, the movie Obsession by Gen Z youtuber Curry Barker is trending and is the second highest grossing film of 2026. I have personally seen it twice and thought it was an incredible and insightful creative work.

Basic synopsis (spoiler alert) is a young man who is infatuated with his lifelong crush makes a wish upon an enchanted magical stick that his crush would love him more than anything in the world, which results in disastrous consequences. I personally thought the film was just a tragic series of unfortunate events, rather than it pushing an agenda. He doesn't make the wish out of malice, nor is he truly aware of what he's doing, and as is evidenced in the film there's no way out of his wish other than through dying. So he made a foolish wish with nightmarish consequences with no way out.

However, through reviewing the film and watching several commentaries, I see the film as a poignant deconstruction of the male loneliness crisis. Bear is a well-meaning guy: he has his own place, his own car, he has a stable job, has close friends with both genders and generally is a pleasant guy; albeit painfully shy and cowardly. I personally viewed the character to be kind of light in the loafers, and not really "masculine" enough for the kind of girl he was trying to pull. His crush, Nikki, clearly likes confidence and traditionally masculine traits (not like in an Andrew Tate machista way, but like the guy orders a pina colada when she's ordering straight whiskey and blubbers like a schoolboy every time he speaks to her). Even his body language is like a lanky high school boy who is in his first relationship, not a man in his 20s who presumably has been through love before.

I think the premise of who Bear is at first is a fair depiction of the average love-starved Gen Z man. Who Bear is presented at in the start of the film is what the typical incel/love-challenged young man truly is. He isn't portrayed as some fat, greasy, sloppy abusive misogynist; he's depicted as an intelligent, thoughtful, decent-looking, put together guy who just struggles with confidence and love. He isn't portrayed as unrepentant scum, but a well-meaning guy set on a misguided path.

Most women viewers and commenters, however, point out that this apparently makes Bear the worst type of predator because he presents himself as a man you can trust and rely on, but has dark and sinister motives. He seems like a guy who has it reasonably put together, but just lacks confidence. However, when it is revealed that the Nikki he is dating is actually a separate personality/entity and the true Nikki is submerged in the sunken place and is constantly being tortured. Once he is aware of this, at first he tries to amend the wish to curtail her abnormal personality traits rather than just jumping straight into trying to undo the wish. Undoing the wish is secondary, and only focused on once he realizes it's unfeasible to be altered.

I agree that this is a worthy criticism of him, and he IS in the wrong for this. Another criticism is when the real Nikki emerges when the spell Nikki is asleep, and asks Bear to kill her and he responds: "is it so bad to just be with me?" A lot of female viewers HATED Bear once he said this and said this was the line that cemented him as the villain.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT on Bear's side with that statement, but my thoughts didn't go straight to abuse or control, but rather logistics and reality. How was Bear supposed to just kill her?

There was no reasonable course for Bear to take in the film, if we're being real. He made a fucked up wish (though he didn't know it would come true because he thought it was a gag toy from a New Age chakra store). He has no way of undoing it. He has to be intimate with Nikki or else she'll have a psychiatric breakdown or harm herself or others. The only way he can undo the wish is either through murder or suicide. And he does genuinely try to get someone else to make a wish to end it, but it backfires. He is clearly upset and disturbed by the destruction and carnage. Yes, he is incredibly selfish but I never got the impression he was an abusive narcassist getting a jolly out of controlling a woman.

I don't think he thought wishing for a girl to love him would result in this level of destruction and tragedy, nobody would. I think he just thought her feelings towards him would change, and she'd be the exact same, but with warmer feelings towards him. I don't think Bear is an innocent man nor is he all that good, but I don't think he is an abominable villain like he is being spoken of by fans of the film. Anyway, that was my two cents and I wrote a whole film essay, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I don't give young people the advice to go to college anymore. College is too expensive to do it without a plan. Unless you have a solid plan on where you'd go post-grad, I'd argue there's no point in going. In China, there's a significant portion of the population with masters degree working delivery. In the U.S. it's the same. I don't think it's worth it to go to school if you don't need it. Obviously, there's people who will say, even the most basic jobs require bachelors, but those jobs that I've seen that require them, but don't need them are like just a few dollars above minimum wage. So, even then to go to college just to get a job that doesn't even really pay a living wage is kind of ridiculous.

A lot of people advocate to go into the trades, which I kind of agree with. Only so much as it pays you a living wage (sometimes) and you don't have to go into debt. The trades are long, hard hours and they don't have upward mobility built into it. Most tradesmen will say, "well, we can become owners!" It's not the own they think it is, because starting a business was ALWAYS an option, and even if you start a business, you're a small business owner. You're not moving up the corporate ladder which is what upward mobility is meant to describe.

Honestly, if I was a 18 year old now, I'd probably be really lost. It's not looking good out there. Even Harvard grads are struggling to get jobs.

What would he have done if he survived or won? Even if he could change back to his original appearance, what would he have done from there?

Im genuinely curious of the mindset of a guy who goes to college to study the classics or anthropology.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I have come to the conclusion that society needs to advocate for brotherhood. What does that mean? I believe that going forward men need to develop closer friendships with one another and live with each other.

In American society we have a massive housing crisis, a massive wage/income crisis, a massive male loneliness crisis and the disparity between the haves and the have nots have reached levels not seen in living memory. We must adapt or we will die. The 1950s ideal of the strapping young veteran driving his coupe deville to Madison Avenue to further improve the American economy and driving home to a cute little 2.5 bedroom in Westchester to his loving blonde wife and his leave it to beaver children is dead.

Modern men have to reject that notion. It has died and will not come around again. I think the future of the men will be combined communal living. 4 or 5 close buds jointly owning a property and chipping in. Each can have a girlfriend but I think the best thing is just decentering women. We need to completely cut out the concept of romance and building a family unit altogether as an aspiration. If it happens. Then it happens, but the concept of each man to have his own nuclear family is gone. The nuclear family is now an alternative lifestyle, not the standard.