How the One Wish Willow Works in Obsession

Curry Barker's Obsession centers on a novelty toy from the 1980s called the One Wish Willow, a fake willow branch that grants a wish when snapped. The film follows Bear, who wishes that Nikki would love him "more than anyone else in the world," and that wish sets off a grim unraveling.

Rather than the monkey's paw trope—where the path to a wish brings catastrophe—the One Wish Willow appears to literalize the wish itself. It delivers exactly what the wisher wants, and in Bear's case that interpretation seems to include creating a new version of Nikki to oblige him while imprisoning the real Nikki inside her own body and mind.

The real Nikki breaks through intermittently: during a first kiss, in a demented public poem, and in a scene of self-mutilation, even pleading with Bear to kill her to end the torment. She is ultimately released only after Bear dies from an intentional overdose, by which point several members of their friend group lie dead.

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