obsession

This review may contain spoilers.

This sat on my watchlist for forever without me knowing anything about it: the plot, the cast, the genre. That served me well. The high concept is the good bit. The score is genuinely unnerving, and the course title cards (breadless bread plate; R.I.P. Jeremy) are funnier than most of the dialogue. Nicholas Hoult is very good as Tyler, whose foodie devotion curdles into something much worse.

But the guests are thin, one sin apiece, dealt with accordingly, and the film never bothers to explain why an entire kitchen would agree to do what it does for its chef’s grievance; “because people worship chefs” is weak. Jeremy is where I stopped extending credit. Margot’s way out—she’s a service worker, therefore exempt—is the same shortcut. Slowik’s complaint is that presentation has swallowed the food; the film proves him right more thoroughly than it means to.

I don’t entirely know what I just watched, and I think that’s the point. It opens like a coming-of-age film about two kids bonding over a Buffy-esque TV show, then quietly stops being that and becomes something stranger. The Lynch comparisons are well earned. Schoenbrun shoots suburbia soft and pink, and the Alex G score sits underneath everything like static you can’t quite tune out. The broader soundtrack, Caroline Polachek and yeule especially, is great. What stays with me is how patient the film is about not naming what it’s actually about. For anyone working through questions of identity and dysphoria, I suspect this will matter for a long time.

Watched on Tuesday March 17, 2026.