First published in 1892, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts a postpartum woman whose husband, a physician, prescribes a rest cure for her so-called “nervous depression,” confining her to a nursery. The narrator’s increasing fixation on the room’s titular wallpaper reflects her descent into psychosis, culminating in her belief that a woman is trapped behind the wallpaper—and, ultimately, that she herself is that woman.
What if the short story were told from the man’s point of view? Obsession—the micro-budget horror film that has quickly become one of the year’s biggest box-office successes—feels, in some ways, like an answer to that question.
Directed by Curry Barker, Obsession follows Bear (played by Michael Johnston), who acquires a supernatural toy that grants his wish for his co-worker and childhood friend, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), to love him more than anyone else in the world. Nikki’s mind and body are thereby effectively hijacked, echoing the woman’s loss of agency in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Unlike Gilman’s short story, however, Obsession places us in the perspective of the controlling figure, forcing us to confront not only the horror of victimization but that of possessive desire itself.
Bear is initially presented sympathetically: as a lonely, shy, awkward music store employee with an unrequited crush. We might relate to his desperation for connection; after all, he seems as gentle as, well, a teddy bear. While bears are also predators, the character does not see himself as a villain—and because we spend time inside his mindset, neither do we. Even as Nikki begins to behave erratically, we believe Bear deserves a chance at romance and that he can control the situation. More troubling, we believe he can control Nikki.
Unlike “The Yellow Wallpaper,” in which we inhabit the woman’s mental breakdown, Obsession mostly foregrounds Bear’s fear and guilt, obscuring Nikki’s pain and suffering—at first. Hoping to alter his wish, he calls the toy’s customer support line and hears Nikki screaming in agony on the other end. He returns home to find her frozen in place, covered in excrement and vomit; later, she mutilates her own face with a broken bottle. Eventually, while she sleeps, the voice of her former self briefly resurfaces and begs him to kill her. But Bear refuses, asking, “What’s so bad about being with me?” His desire to be loved has become inseparable from his willingness to erase Nikki’s freedom. (Her surname, “Freeman,” feels heavy-handed.) The realization that we have centered Bear’s distress over the damage he has inflicted is powerfully uncomfortable.
Gilman’s short story concludes with the protagonist rubbing against the wallpaper and declaring, “I’ve got out at last… in spite of you,” causing her husband to faint as she continues circling the room, liberated through madness. By the end of Obsession, Bear is similarly inert, but Nikki is lucid and seemingly still trapped—that is, left to grapple with the carnage unleashed by the obsessive version of herself that Bear created.
Medicine is no longer the locus of patriarchal control it was when Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” but it still carries traces of gendered authority. Barker’s Obsession critiques the insidious logic of modern “nice guy” entitlement; believing he deserves Nikki’s love, Bear prescribes not a rest cure but a “love cure” that reveals how ordinary longing and self-pity can become coercive.
By aligning our sympathies with the perpetrator before exposing the full cost of his desire, the film tests our complicity and highlights the peril of love that demands possession.
Web image from Capstone Pictures.
