Focus Features has filed the $750,000-made, $500 million-grossing film under musical or comedy, a move that could reshape Inde Navarrette's path to a best actress nomination.
Obsession made its money as a horror film. Now it wants to be funny too, at least on the Golden Globes ballot.
The Hollywood Reporter learned that Focus Features has submitted Curry Barker's runaway hit in the musical or comedy race rather than drama, settling a question that's been simmering in awards circles for weeks. The film cost $750,000 to make. It has since pulled in more than $500 million worldwide and turned star Inde Navarrette into one of the industry's hottest names, playing a wish-fulfilled version of a character named Nikki Freeman who loves a young man "more than anyone in the fucking world," with chaos and violence following soon after.
Most pundits figured Obsession would run as a drama. It's a story built on body horror and heartbreak, after all. But those close to the film told THR it plays like a comedy in practice, with audiences cracking up at Navarrette's wilder line readings, several of which have already become memes, and that Globes voters themselves had signalled they saw it the same way.
The precedent argument
This isn't new territory for the Globes. Get Out, The Banshees of Inisherin, Triangle of Sadness, Poor Things, The Substance and Bugonia all ran in the musical or comedy lane despite being anything but light viewing, and all picked up best picture nominations there. Banshees and Poor Things went on to win. The Martian did too, back in 2015, a result people still bring up when the category's credibility comes under question.
JoBlo's Chris Bumbray, who reviewed Obsession out of SXSW, leaned toward horror over comedy himself, but he didn't dispute the film's tonal whiplash. "Barker guides the film with a sure hand and doesn't shy away from hammering home his message about the difference between real love and obsession," he wrote, adding that the gore lands "so randomly and brutally that you can't help but laugh at how demented they are" before the tragedy underneath sets in.
The category switch does more than settle a classification debate. It changes who Navarrette is up against. Over on the drama side, the best actress field is expected to be packed, with names like Julianne Moore, Léa Seydoux, Helen Mirren, Penélope Cruz and Sandra Hüller (nominated twice over, for two different films) all in the mix. Shift to comedy and musical, and Navarrette's chief rival becomes Moore anyway, since The Debut is also being positioned there. Everyone else thins out considerably.
On the picture side, Obsession will reportedly compete against Wild Horse Nine, The Invite, Club Kid, The Debut and Michael for musical or comedy honours, a lineup that looks gentler than the drama slate shaping up around The Odyssey, Project Hail Mary, Dune: Part Three and Fjord.
Whatever the Globes decide, Obsession is a lock for one category that doesn't care about genre at all: best box office achievement, where a $750,000 budget turning into half a billion dollars speaks for itself.
Barker, for his part, isn't waiting around. His follow-up, Anything But Ghosts, co-written with Cooper Tomlinson and starring the pair as in-over-their-heads ghosthunters, is already locked for a May 2027 release. The Golden Globes nominations, and the argument over whether Obsession belongs where it's been filed, come first.
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