Some thoughts on Obsession
My friend, her boyfriend and I saw Obsession last night. I thought it was fine, some parts had me yawning. I didn't think it was bad at all but also not scary. Her and her boyfriend absolutely loved the movie.
We tried to discuss it a little on the walk home but it felt like we watched two different movies almost. I admittedly am not the most media literate and I like doing deep dives on movies after I've seen them to get a better grasp.
Obviously, the entire movie is a woman being taken advantage of, made to do things against her will, being assaulted. One point we talked about was the scene when he leaves and she freezes and pees herself. To me, my first thought was how assault victims can start to have accidents after being assaulted. My friend snapped back at me that it was obviously to prove she'd been possessed by a demon. She did mention that she watched interviews with director beforehand, so I get being wrong on that one. But I guess it felt almost more layered or it's possible to read into the movie in different ways? I think maybe they focused far more on the demon aspect and I focused more on how it's a.. retelling of reality I suppose? We at least agreed on hating the "adorkable" main character.
We vehemently disagreed on the ending though. To them, they were glad Bare died and that she got to live, a "finally the woman makes it out" type feeling. We've talked extensively before about our exhaustion with the excessive and often fetishization of torturing women in movies and women always having the worst fuckin time. But to me? That was possibly the worst ending. The entire time, Bare has to face no real repercussions for what he's done to her. He's scared, sure, but it read very much to me as how men can treat women to the point of breaking, then play the victim and call the women crazy. Meanwhile, she's pleading for death, hurting herself, and ends up killing her friends basically under his possession. And even at the very end, the loser faces no pain. Can't shoot himself, but swallows a bunch of pills so he feels basically nothing. He gets out, pain free, after everything he's caused. And she wakes up, and is herself again, and has to deal with the reality that she killed two of her friends and the third killed himself. Deal with what she's put her body through, what's been done to her. In all reality, she likely is getting her ass sent to jail and has to live with that insane unfathomable trauma, all stemming from one mans selfish actions. His choices become her burden to bear, and essentially ruin her life. I argued that is in no way shape or form a good ending for her. That in this specific scenario, I don't think the woman living was the happy ending for her.
They argued that she's a pretty woman and people understand there aren't perfect victims and she could easily plea he was obsessed with her and was assaulting her and he drove her to do it, and get off scot free and just live her life. I argued that there was a room full of witnesses of her being unstable and the aggressor that could argue against her.
I'm not saying they're wrong for their opinions, or that my reading for the movie even makes sense, but I'm curious on other people's takes. I get I'm already odd man out because the movie didn't scare me and I thought it was just fine, but is this a case of me being painfully dumb or does it make sense?