*SPOILERS*
A boy, Bear (Mike Johnston), has an unrequited love for a girl, Nikki (Inde Navarrette). While visiting a gift shop for jewelry to present to her, Bear picks up an old toy, the One Wish Willow, that purports to grant the purchaser whatever he desires. Bear wishes Nikki would love him more than anyone in the world. She proceeds to do so and goes crazy in her obsession The toy, and by extension its manufacturer, is the facilitator of Nikki’s possession, which starts out “perfect girlfriend” great for Bear, and then goes downhill.
What’s good? The flick is very assured for a first feature and it warms the cockles of this old heart to see a young writer-director who expended less than a $1 million produce a near half-a-billion grosser. Curry Barker maintains a low, steady simmer throughout, supported by strong turns from the leads, particularly Bear, an uncanny mix of Jeremy Davies and Billy Crudup. On occasion, the picture is slyly funny.
What’s bad? Most everything else. The plot is simplistic and increasingly absurd, eschewing all explanation. “How did this happen? “What’s behind it? Are the gift shop owners the malefactors? Why does the toy have a number you can call? Is this mass produced? If not, why is it discussed on Reddit?”
“Who cares? Just enjoy the ride,” is the response.
That flip rejoinder, however, means the viewer has to shut down his brain. He cannot ask, “If I was forced by alchemy to love one above all others, it makes sense that in the throes of possession I would exhibit all sorts of jealousies in the most extreme of ways, including offing a romantic rival, but why would I feed my love’s dead cat to him in a sandwich?”
Because it’s creepy and cool, I guess.
Instead of a Drag Me to Hell backstory or an allegory so compelling you don’t dwell on the the source of the horror (It Follows, where, disease is just a disease – no one asks from whence it comes), Barker’s tale rejects logic as an inconvenience, and the picture necessarily peters out.
Bear figures his mistake out quickly. Not because he is smart nor because Barker slow-walks Nikki’s aberrance. By the middle of the film, we all most assuredly know Nicki is possessed and batshit psychotic, but in case you were dim, in a moment when Nikki’s alter ego is not in the complete control of her, she says flat out to Bear “Kill me” – just as Regan, through her own skin, told Father Karras, “Help me” in The Exorcist.
And yet, Bear–
a) still defends Nikki beyond all reason and in spite of her bloodying self harm;
b) endangers everyone around him in the process;
c) exhibits his own angst as to whether Nikki really loves him (or was it only the malign entity … oh, no, modern dating is sooooo hard!)
Bear’s behavior is so offputtingly discordant, you don’t really feel for him, and the film doesn’t work unless you really feel for him (or, if he were a villain, which he is not).
The movie clunks it way to its unsatisfying end. Nikki’s all-encompassing love destroys Bear’s world and the solution he happens upon is so patently elemental and clumsily arrived at, with those pesky and lame rules suddenly jammed into the equation, you’re annoyed at the picture’s smug self-satisfaction.
Very Longlegs. A great, accomplished feel, but exceedingly lazy and dumb.
Free on Peacock.
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