Disclaimer: Contains major spoilers for the film Obsession, directed by Curry Barker. 

Between AI slop, El Nino and wars in every country, it’s been a rough week but your girlfriend is adamant about watching This Week’s Trending Film at the local theatre. She promises you that it’ll be fun. 

Two hours later…

From the Boyfriend’s perspective:

1. As soon as the end credits roll, immediately uncurl yourself from the fetal position you were in while grabbing your girlfriend’s hands before the lights turn on. 
2. While exiting the theatre, secretly check your watch to see how high your heart rate got. Text your friends that you hit your cardio for the day, even though the timing might get some questions. 
3. When you near the washrooms, tell your partner you need to use them. You don’t.  You just want to make sure the film hasn’t left any embarrassing evidence behind. 
4. Once you’re home, finally take the much-awaited dump you’ve been holding in since that gruesome car window scene. Scroll through Chhota Bheem and Mr. Bean videos while sitting on the toilet to calm yourself down. Then, when you hit the gym, strategize scenarios on how you’d survive as Bear while doing bicep curls. After all, your girlfriend is the sweetest thing in the world. Right?
5. You almost forget to check up on the cat! Upon spotting her, you shed tears of joy, which you immediately wipe off your face. Promise that you’ll never let anything bad happen to her, let alone turn her into a meat sandwich. She’s your favourite girl in the world, even though you’ve named her Raja. From now on, your girlfriend is never allowed to touch her.  
6. Obsessively scroll through Instagram reels about the movie. Feel a weight lift off your shoulders knowing that you’re not the only one feeling this way. Watch countless videos of other men comparing their girlfriends to Nikki. Can’t play Call of Duty with the boys, can’t party at clubs, can’t make dark humour jokes…your grocery list is smaller. Nothing you did ever felt like enough, and your girl won’t give you any space. Next thing you know, you’ve locked yourself in a bathroom, attempting to swallow a bottle full of sleeping pills. 
7. Open your Photos app and go over old pictures of you and your girlfriend. When you had started dating, she occupied the number one spot in your life. People jokingly called you Bonnie and Clyde since you did everything together: cooking butter Maggi, watching your favourite Modern Family episodes, and falling asleep with each other on FaceTime. Then she had an anxiety episode. She was no longer the person you fell in love with. You just wanted her to be normal again, you wanted her to go back to being your baby. When she asked you for some space to heal, you questioned why she didn’t want to be with you.   
8. Your girlfriend texts asking if you reached home safely. It’s happening already — she can’t seem to leave you alone. Is she a closeted Nikki? She whines the same way too; in that high-pitched, claustrophobic voice. A room full of cicadas is easier on the ear. It used to make you melt, too: the constant ‘Do you love me’ and ‘I care about you so so so much.’ Now, every message sends a shiver down your spine. Sure, you had passed a few glances and smirks her way during certain scenes in the movie, but in hindsight…well, that might have been a mistake.
9. Begin pacing around while replaying the film again in your head for the hundredth time. What did Bear do that was so wrong? He loved someone. So, he wished that she would love him more than anyone else in the whole world. Isn’t that what every Disney movie is about, that to love is to persevere? Your heroes, Kabir Singh and Ranvijay Balbir, also won the girl of their dreams. A real man keeps at his love for a girl, even if initially, she doesn’t like him back. You open your Notes app, and start to list every time she has made your life difficult: the constant dates, the gift giving, the location sharing. The evidence is staring you in the face. 
10. Feel your blood start to boil at the unfairness of it all. You need to break up with your girlfriend. Bear made a grave mistake; he should have left Nikki, the moment things got very weird. Before she created a memorial for his super dead cat, before she creepily watched him sleep, and before she begged him to kill her. He remained rooted to her, and his faithful devotion to her is what ultimately killed him. Well,  you aren’t going to make that mistake. Your girlfriend has made you too nice, too compliant. And you’re sure that she’s even been talking badly about you behind your back. The Notes app list you just made swirls in black currents through your mind while you watch your Raja happily lapping up milk from her bowl; you swat the bowl away. No one, and nothing, can be trusted. 

From the Girlfriend’s perspective:

1. Walk out of the theatre thinking, ‘Hey, that was a good film.’
2. Hold a conference call with your friends to discuss the film at length. The girls and you talk about how you’ve experienced and read about worse things that have happened to women in the news. One of your friends jokes that if the roles of Nikki and Bear were reversed, this film would essentially have been a documentary. Everyone laughs. Another brings up how she had to rant-write an essay because of how painful Nikki’s slow unravelling was to watch — especially her constant rape, both psychologically and physically. Someone remarks that Bear is like every other ‘nice’ guy she’s met on dating apps; if he loves a woman, then everything, and everyone else, is irrelevant. 
3. Read up on the Indian Censor Board of Film Certification’s decision to remove Nikki’s expressionless sex scene; they probably realized it was ‘normal’ for their audience.
4. Text your partner to ask if he reached home safely. 
5. After the call, you get a good night’s sleep.

Sneha Sebastian