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A Disturbing Look At Fan Obsession
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A Disturbing Look At Fan Obsession

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PLOT: When a superfan learns that her rock star idol is spiraling into addiction, she makes it her mission to save him, whether he wants her help or not. But when her desperate plan spirals out of control, she kidnaps him in a delusional attempt to “fix” him. What begins as compassion turns into captivity, as she locks him away in the name of love.

REVIEW: Everyone has had that musician they’ve been absolutely obsessed with. Where they’ve listened to their music and felt like they were genuinely being spoken to through the lyrics. In the day and age of social media and the internet, parasocial relationships with an artist have grown even more extreme. Fans think they truly know these people, who are so larger than life, and would jump at the chance to have a real connection with them. This is at the heart of Sweetness, a tale of misguided fan obsession gone terribly wrong.

The story follows Rylee, a 16-year-old whose bedroom is adorned with posters of a certain rockstar. She goes to see him in concert and, through a series of unlikely circumstances, ends up with the man drugged out in her bathroom. Feeling like she needs to save him, she handcuffs him and won’t let him leave until he’s clean. It’s an interesting concept, and you can feel that Rylee thinks she’s doing the right thing. It’s this moral ambiguity that makes the narrative so intriguing.

Kate Hallett is great is Rylee, the girl absolutely obsessed with Payton. She’s able to exhibit a loneliness, even when surrounded by her friend group, that is palpable. Her descent into madness never feels over-the-top, but it’s not quite circumstantial. She’s pushing herself further into this with both the guilt of her mother’s death and her desire to fix her hero. Aya Furukawa plays her friend Sidney and really stands out. She’s clearly not as on board with the plan as Rylee, and acts more as an audience surrogate.

Herman Tømmeraas‘ Payton is every bit the stereotypical drug addicted rock star. He has a lot of stage presence, so that works well for the concert scenes, and he has a look similar to Yungblud. Justin Chatwin and Steven Ogg are the more well-known names of the cast, but they’re pretty bit parts, playing Riley’s dad and Payton’s tour manager, respectively. It’s so strange to see Chatwin playing someone’s father since I grew up with him as the young adult lead, but he does a good job as a somewhat removed parent.

There are a couple of moments that feel a little stupid, like Payton stopping off for drugs while he has an underage girl with him. The only reason he’s even giving her a ride is so that she doesn’t sue him for hitting her with his car, yet he doesn’t think that this superfan might spread the word about his drug relapse? I suppose you can point to his relapse causing him to not be thinking clearly, but it feels like it’s more done to advance to story versus actually making a lick of sense. There are other instances where these kinds of logic leaps get distracting and writer/director Emma Higgins is a stronger director than writer.

While the music from Payton’s band Floor Plan is actually pretty decent, the soundtrack itself is very distracting. Very loud music that doesn’t always match the vibe of the scene and seems to be going more for irony or on-the-nose than anything else. Sometimes it can work, but it just makes the entire film feel a bit dated, as the music video vibe has been out of style for a while. The score works better and helps add to the uneasiness of the situation, and I wish it were used more often.

Sweetness is a dark look at loneliness and fan obsession anchored by great performances by its cast. It stumbles a bit in its messaging and sometimes cares more about shocking moments than satisfying payoffs. Thankfully, the characters make it all so fascinating, and their development is done so well that it’s easy to let the missteps slide.

Sweetness releases On Digital and VOD on February 13th, 2026.

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