Obsession Ending Explained: Inde Navarrette Breaks Down Shocking Twist
Inde Navarrette in 'Obsession.'
Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
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[This story contains spoilers from Obsession.]
It’s a tale as old as time: Be careful what you wish for.
In Curry Barker’s supernatural horror film Obsession, Inde Navarrette’s Nikki becomes the target of a dangerous wish when her shy friend Bear (Michael Johnston), desperate to escape the friendzone, wishes that she would love him more than anyone else in the world. To his surprise, it works — but not in the fairytale way he imagined. Instead, Nikki’s love spirals into something violent, possessive and terrifying.
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As Nikki transforms from an ordinary young woman into an unhinged force willing to do anything to keep Bear to herself, Navarrette delivers a seamless and chilling performance that has quickly positioned her as one of horror’s most exciting new talents.
A major part of Obsession’s impact also comes from Barker’s fresh voice as a writer-director. Following its buzzy premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Focus Features acquired the $750,000 indie for $15 million, with critics and audiences praising its bold take on supernatural horror. But at the center of it all is Navarrette, whose fearless turn grounds the film’s shocking premise in something both heartbreaking and haunting.
“I think the horror world will be very happy,” Navarrette tells The Hollywood Reporter of Barker’s future in the genre. “It’s gonna be a lot better with Curry part of it, because he’s a new and specific voice.”
Read on to find out how Navarrette pulled off that bonkers performance, whether Nikki and Bear ever could have worked if he’d just told the truth, how she unpacked that devastating plea for death and what she believes really happens to Nikki after the film’s shocking twist.
I don’t know how much you’ve seen online, but everywhere I look, people are calling this one of the great horror performances. What has it been like stepping into horror in such a major way and already getting that kind of response from audiences, especially horror fans?
It feels very surreal. I try not to look at a lot of comments, only because I really want to take in every moment. I mean, I’m doing a press junket for the first time. I’m doing a bunch of things for the first time. So, I really want to be present, but it feels really insane. I mean, it’s nuts. It feels really, really good.
Your chemistry with Michael is so central to making this story work. Did that connection feel immediate when you first read together?
Yes, I felt like I understood Nikki more reading opposite Michael because the responses I was saying, the lines written down, became real and made sense. There’s a different meaning to them. It was like a person-to-person conversation versus two actors reiterating what was on a page, and our chemistry was so immediate and specific. We have brother-sister chemistry, which is great, because then you look at them on screen and you go they should not be together, it feels gross and wrong on so many different levels. But one specific one being that Michael and I have chemistry that is not romantic, so I think that really adds to their relationship.
Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in Obsession.
Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
Early on, Nikki and Bear’s relationship feels complicated and even confusing. One could argue she’s sending mixed signals, but when Bear downplays his feelings and says they’re just friends, Nikki looks like she’s genuinely disappointed. If Bear had been honest from the start, do you think Nikki might’ve been open to something more?
I completely think so. Something Curry and I talked about in the beginning was that since the whole film is from Bear’s perspective, we never leave that. We played with this idea of: Bear doesn’t know how Nikki feels. Bear only knows that he really likes her. So we played with the performance aspect of Nikki, of having it be super ambiguous. Does she actually like him? Does she not? Because that’s exactly how Bear feels. But I think, as the person who played Nikki, she definitely would have been open to the conversation if he had just said something, but he didn’t.
Nikki’s an extremely free-spirited person, because she talks about quitting,