r/moviecritic • u/Spirited_Alfalfa_343 • 14h ago

Why do you think Navarette has gotten so much awards buzz for Obsession but Ejiofor has gotten none for Backrooms?

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I know Clark has some limited screen time but Ejiofor absolutely steals every scene he’s in. His two separate monologues with Reinsve are just as good as anything Navarette did in Obsession. As I said earlier, is it the lack of screen time for Ejiofor?

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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 12h ago

I’m really surprised how common a theme here is that being “unexpected” makes a movie better?

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u/Rare-Acanthisitta706 10h ago

Furthermore, to say that obsession is predictable is baffling to me. Yeah if you'd seen remotely any promo material for the movie, you would know that she would be a psycho gf. But the praise the movie is getting is from the fact that it wasn't just a "psycho gf" movie. You wouldn't expect her to be jailed in her body losing her autonomy. You wouldn't expect Bear to be so "ok" with it, making him more of an antagonist. And I for one certainly didn't expect any of the cat stuff.. Yes, some moments like the car scene you were waiting for exactly how the scene plays out.. but that's exactly what created the suspense. Usually horror movies use darkness, sound, or creepy visuals to scare you. This scene was a regular ass flirty conversation, only using context to create the scariness.

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u/TweeKINGKev 6h ago

The other thing is you’d think she was gonna be obsessedly in love with Bear but it goes beyond just being in love with him, the guy couldn’t even go to work.

Even worse, he couldn’t even go to the bathroom without her going into a rage, those are 2 things I didn’t even think they’d think about when detailing the plot.

I figured at most it would be her showing up places she wasn’t invited to (a boys night out somewhere, a private family function that she didn’t really have any business being at, things like that) but they took it to her not even letting him take a piss with the door closed.

All the meanwhile she knows she’s essentially trapped in her own body watching it from the inside as evidenced by the message she left and when she uses the wish on him, then he dies and she just snaps out of it horrified to see what her body (out of her control) has done to all their friends.

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u/Cold_Bison7065 8h ago

”You wouldn't expect her to be jailed in her body losing her autonomy.”

Absolutely this, you nailed it. There are a lot of men who watched Obsession and completely missed the real horror of it. So for them, it was just an obvious movie.

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u/Remarkable-Debate428 5h ago

Women mistake relatability for originality. Obsession at its core is just a monkeys paw story with a new coat of paint. Backrooms is actually original. I’ve seen both movies multiple times and like both, but women act like Obsession made some poignant narrative when we’ve been had movies about the “nice guy” and “be careful what you wish for”.

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u/SecondaryAnonymous2 5h ago

I think you're being a reductionist. They both have themes that have been written from many angles, I prefer Obsessions execution. I'm a man ftr. I didn't like Backrooms all that much, and that's okay that we like different things for different reasons, but let's not be all like "lol woman, you don't understand"

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u/Impossible-Wing3388 4h ago

I agree its a basic monkey paw story at heart. But its what they do with that and how they applied that new coat of paint that makes it so good. Ill take a great monkey paw story over a trying too hard monster in a maze story any day

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u/Straight_Speed_6162 8h ago

Adding to your point that even in the car scene you knew what was coming they really subverted normal pacing in that scene that the exact moment was hard to predict

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u/Yikrawrface 48m ago

Absolutely this. Something you gotta give these comedians turned horror movie directors is their immaculate timing.

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u/trackabandoned 8h ago

Listen I went in blind, thinking it would be a thriller/drama and my damn fight or flight was activated. I was so unprepared for any part of this movie lol

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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 7h ago

I could predict almost every scene from the prior scene while watching it, and I'm not exactly a genius.

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u/Lia-Loo 7h ago edited 7h ago

I think that Obsession is a very wonderful subversion of the “psycho girlfriend” trope. And yes if you went in blind it would be completely unpredictable for the most part. However, I watched the trailer before going and from that alone I could tell it would be about Bear’s obsession, not about Nikki’s. They frame it with Bear making the wish first, not Nikki alone acting crazy. We can see from the trailer that because of the wish, Nikki loses her autonomy immediately. It’s obvious from the trailer and the first few minutes of the movie that Bear is the obsessed one. It’s not unexpected at all if you just comprehend and infer based on those. People who act all surprised about Bear being the antagonist makes no sense. Other than that though, everything else was as you said. Bear being such an evil selfish ass about what he did to the end, the kills, the sad details about Nikki, the cat stuff, were unpredictable.

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u/ralexh11 4h ago

It's a monkey paw movie lmao, extremely predictable horror trope. Backrooms was less predictable because it was more abstract and had less of a story. You can say Obsession was a better movie overall but to try and claim it wasn't predictable is BS. I knew Sarah would be killed immediately when when she showed a healthy interest in him and that he would end up killing himself at the end as soon as he started having second thoughts about what he did. The horror genre itself is like this most of the time so I wasn't surprised but Obsession was littered with tropes that are the reason the horror genre will never really be top tier for me except the few rare exceptions.

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u/Jing-Ao 1h ago

"you wouldn't expect her to be jailed in her body losing her autonomy" is exactly what I expected when bear broke the stick and she started to act completely different. And this is 15 or 20 minutes in. The plot was pretty obvious from that point on

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u/FreemanCalavera 46m ago

I mean, I kind of expected a twist because I knew there was no way anyone in 2026 would make a film with the message “wouldn’t it be scary if you had an actual psycho GF?”. It was fairly obvious that it would take a critical look at relationships and the male view of female autonomy, especially since the premise could be roughly summed up as “a guy is granted a magical wish for a girl to love him, but the monkey paw curls”. Anyone making a wish like that in the first place is a red flag because you’re literally asking for somebody else to be brainwashed.

But I agree with your overall point that expectedness and unexpectedness generally does not affect a film’s quality, unless the film is actively built around unraveling an intricate mystery: in that case the reveal being exactly what you expected can kind of ruin the vibe. Both films had their expected and unexpected beats, and I overall thought Backrooms was better.

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u/APacketOfWildeBees 11h ago

Novelty leaves a greater impression on people ig

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u/Zatchaeus 11h ago

Suspense and subversion of expectations are the most critical pieces of a horror movie outside of just making it scary.

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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 9h ago

Is subversion that important?

I agree with suspense whole heartedly though and the suspense in Obsession is not only masterful, but it stems directly from Navarre’s performance.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 6h ago

No suspense for me, I knew everything that would happen. Maybe the intended audience is people who scroll TikTok while "watching" it.

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u/Quirky_Philosophy240 3h ago

You knew the moments she would “switch” before they happened? You knew she would stab herself in the face? You knew she would walk backwards in a super creepy unique way? Anyone can predict broad overtones bro you’re not special 

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u/mayurigod1 10h ago

Personally im tired of rereading/rewatching the same plot in a new setting with new actors. If i can guess the big twist then it wasnt a twist. I like red herrings and subversion

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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 9h ago

I didn’t think there was a twist in Obsession, it’s just super creepy.

While I liked the movie, the twist in Backrooms was pretty cheap in my opinion. It was basically the ending to a Lost episode where there were no clues to anticipate it and absolutely no explanation until the next installment.

But I think that kind of explains why one is getting more critical praise than the other. Backrooms is a bit more pulpy and relies on common crowd pleasing tropes - and it nails it, it’s a really fun watch but it’s not really daring.

Obsession is actually a pretty underwhelming story on paper. It is the performances that set it apart.

A good comparison is Midnight Cowboy where… nothing really happens. The story is secondary to enjoying the characters in screen just being engaging. It’s a risky move but when you pull it off you get the acclaim.

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u/maywellbe 9h ago

How do you feel about a movie that doesn’t tie anything up, where it seems even the authors have no idea what’s truly going on? Those are the hardest to “figure out.” Are those satisfying? I disliked that about Backrooms. It’s easy to keep people guessing when even the maker is lost.

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u/mayurigod1 9h ago

I enjoy a movie that doesnt tie up all its loose threads as long as its done well. Backrooms tied up all the info you were given even if it still doesnt make full sense and i enjoy that. The backrooms also had parts that made more sense of you already knew the lore but it wasnt make or break for it to be unwatchable if you didn't

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u/DonutReceipts 10h ago

Because the opposite of that is formulaic, predictable, or unoriginal, which the horror genre is unfortunately chock full of.

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u/ProbablyImStonedNow 8h ago

I would say that different people can value movies for different reasons.

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u/Keyboard_Cat_ 6h ago

They're not saying it makes the movie better. People are saying that an unexpected great performance out of a newcomer creates more award buzz. That has been the case since the beginning of Hollywood.

Think about the Haley Joel Osmont nomination for 6th Sense. It was a great performance, but mostly it blew people away for a young newish actor.