Is Obsession Cool Because the West Did it? Bollywood Has Been Doing It For Years

Obsession stars Inde Navarette and Michael Johnston

Indians are obsessed with Obsession. The reddit threads are blowing up, Instagram creators are having a field day with skits around the premise, and every brand has jumped on the bandwagon to promote themselves. But, I am a little confused about this hoo-ha around the film.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie does a great job in portraying the loss of agency and the gradual shrinking of a woman’s world due to a man. But, isn’t this the exact plot we have been watching for decades? In fact, I would argue that Bollywood’s version is significantly more sophisticated. Obsession makes the rookie mistake of acknowledging the loss of agency that Nikki experiences in the movie. Bollywood, on the other hand, understands that if you add enough music, enough longing, and a mediocre attractive male lead, people will not only accept a woman losing her agency, they will actively root for it.

I mean, think about the average Bollywood heroine. She begins the film as a functioning human being with interests, ambitions, friends, and a life that exists independently of the hero. By the end of the film, all of those things have undergone a miraculous transformation (much like the one wish willow). Her primary occupation is loving the man and everything else becomes surprisingly flexible. Her future, for all intents and purposes, becomes entirely compatible with whatever the hero is planning to do.

Bollywood has always had a remarkable ability to present the erosion of a woman’s individuality as emotional depth. If a woman waits years for a man, forgives him repeatedly, abandons opportunities for him, rearranges her life around him, or tolerates behavior that would prompt a concerned conversation among friends in real life (looking at you Naina from YJHD), the film treats these as actions as evidence of the purity of her love. The less she asks for herself, the more extraordinary her love appears to be.

This is where Bollywood triumphs over Obsession. Obsession presents a woman’s loss of agency for what is it, Bollywood presents it as aspirational. And the men in the film are instrumental to this finesse. Bollywood has perfected the art of transforming crime into romance. Stalking is persistence, refusing to accept rejection is determination, and forcibly inserting yourself into the woman’s life is destiny. What another filmmaker identified as boundary violation, Bollywood identifies as chemistry.

And to be fairly honest, I have to admit that there is a certain mad genius to this approach. Most films require audiences to suspend disbelief. Bollywood requires audiences to suspend their understanding of healthy human relationships. The fact that generations after generations have accepted this arrangement without much protest suggests that it has been extraordinarily successful.

If Obsession has taught me anything, it is that Bollywood deserves far more credit than it gets. Anyone can make a film about obsession. It takes a real skill to make generations of people call it love.