Obsession, the acclaimed Curry Barker film about a wish gone wrong, has become a cultural phenomenon — the $750,000 project has grossed more than $500 million worldwide and has catapulted star Inde Navarrette to the top of Hollywood’s A-list — and it is now very much in the mix for awards season recognition.
A big topic of speculation in awards circles has been how the film’s U.S. distributor, Focus Features, will decide to promote it for Golden Globes consideration — as a drama or as a musical or comedy — given that it is both terrifyingly scary and darkly funny.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Focus and its fellow stakeholders have made a decision: the film has been submitted as a musical or comedy.
Many pundits assumed the film would be pushed as a drama, given that it chronicles the chaos and violence that ensues after a young man is granted his wish of a young woman loving him “more than anyone in the fucking world.” But those associated with it insist that it plays like a comedy — audiences tend to laugh at the expressions, remarks and wilder behavior of Navarrette as the wish-version of Nikki Freeman, many of which have been turned into memes — and that Golden Globes voters themselves have indicated that they regard it as a comedy.
Moreover, insiders cite as precedents numerous other genre-blurring films that were submitted and accepted at the Globes in the musical or comedy categories, including Get Out, The Banshees of Inisherin, Triangle of Sadness, Poor Things, The Substance and Bugonia, all of which received best picture (musical/comedy) Golden Globe noms — Banshees and Poor Things, in fact, won — and went on to best picture Oscar noms.
The decision is sure to raise some eyebrows, as have many previous Globes musical or comedy submissions, including those mentioned above and, most famously, The Martian. A subsection of the Golden Globes organization ultimately gets to approve or reject a category submission, but they tend to defer to distributors.
So, in all likelihood, Obsession will be fighting for a best picture Globe nom alongside the likes of Wild Horse Nine, The Invite, Club Kid, The Debut and Michael, which is formidable competition but perhaps less daunting than the drama field, which is expected to include The Odyssey, La Bola Negra, Project Hail Mary, Fjord, All of a Sudden, I Play Rocky, Elsinore, Tender Loving Care, Paper Tiger and Dune: Part Three.
The musical or comedy categorization may also lead to an easier path to a best actress Globe nom for Navarrette, given that most of the other top actress contenders are expected to compete on the drama side of the ledger, including All of a Sudden’s Virginie Efira, Fjord’s Renate Reinsve, The Liberation’s Carrie Coon, Disclosure Day’s Emily Blunt, Misty Green’s Rosalind Eleazar, Gentle Monster’s Léa Seydoux, Tender Loving Care’s Marion Bailey, A Talent for Murder’s Helen Mirren, Bunker’s Penélope Cruz and Sandra Hüller for both Rose and Fatherland. But it also leaves a major hurdle on Navarette’s path to a win: she will now be going head-to-head with the strongest of all best actress contenders, The Debut’s Julianne Moore.
Regardless of how things work out in the split-genre categories, one can rest assured that Obsession will strongly compete for at least one Globe that considers all films: best box office achievement.
