Possession (2002)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Possession is a change of pace of from director Neil LaBute. A literary adaptation of A S Byatt's novel. A story of of two love affairs some 100 years apart that also serves as an academic detective story, academic skulduggery and romance in academia.The relationship in two time streams and the mirroring of it suggests to me the 1981 movie adaptation of The French Lieutenants Woman. However Possession has kind of ripped the guts out of the novel so the mirroring is not as evident.Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhart) is a brash American scholar in London studying the works of English poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) whose poetry was devoted to his wife.Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) is an English academic researching the life of a lesser known Victorian poet Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle) who was also bisexual.Mitchell has discovered letters that appear to link both poets as secret lovers and therefore put a twist to what is known about Ash and his devotion to his wife that would create a literary scandal. The film shows us flashbacks of the two poets lives together and with their partners and the repercussion it causes.Both Mitchell and Bailey follow the trail of clues across England and France visiting libraries, caves and tombs and both also romantically fall for each other as they visit the same places where romance between the poets burned, even though Bailey is going out with another academic researcher (Toby Stephens) who also works as a scholar for the same professor as Mitchell. He gets wind of what they are up to and courts a rival professor to get in on the act and usurp them.We find that the romance between the poets in the Victorian era was more passionate and daring than their modern counterparts who seem afraid to commit. The poets fell in love with each other because of their love letters and poetry. It celebrates writing. The film starts out brightly as Mitchell navigates life in London and being a downtrodden research underling. The film does gets fusty as we are introduced to the flashbacks which is more Quality Street in its confection when it needed bite and spice.The underhanded tactics of rival academics does not work because all of them are just a bunch of farts and you care little for them.I expected something less conventional from LaBute, something more spiky and barbed given that there is a daring and scandalous relationship in Victorian England. The modern day setting is very subdued. It was nice of Labute to show the professors up as a bunch of jackasses though.

Two literary researchers, a man and a woman, start doing a research to find evidence that a laureate poet of the Victorian era in England had betrayed his wife despite the fact that his biography described him as a faithful husband never interested in other women. Discovery after discovery they finish by finding documents (i. e. letters) that show new clues which lead to results confirming that in fact the poet had a love relationship with a poetess of his times though only for a short period. The movie develops itself in two parallel folds closely intertwined in an intelligent cut, one showing the scenes lived by the two researchers while the other goes 100 years back to show the scenes of the love story between the two poets. The succession of sequences of both epochs is very agile and sometimes there isn't even a shot changing; a simple camera horizontal traveling takes us to the 19th century even since many scenes of both times take place at the same spots, interior or exterior. Of course from a certain moment on and very naturally, the professional relation between the two researchers transforms itself into a love one that runs parallel to the other one. Both love stories are somewhat complicated: the first one because we are in Victorian times where such extramarital relations were not simple at all and besides that we are in presence of two spiritually and intellectually superior human beings that live their love in a refined way though not exempt of doubts and uncertainties; the second one because the researchers are also superior beings and the love freedom of the current times has not freed lovers from similar doubts and uncertainties. The movie's detective feature appears now and then in moving episodes like for instance the fight at the cemetery near the end. Another existential curiosity is when the poet says at a certain point that he goes on loving his wife though in a manner different of the one in which he loves the other woman. This is very modern because nowadays some psychologists discuss the possibility of a man loving two women (or a woman two men) simultaneously though in different ways. Finally we can perhaps say that both love stories though genuine and authentic lack some deepness in terms of analysis. Nevertheless this is a good movie worth to be seen.

The supremely literary and ambitious novel by A.S. Byatt has been streamlined into a more conventional love story for two beautiful Hollywood actors in this screen adaptation directed by (of all people!) Neil LaBute.Aaron Eckhart and Gwyneth Paltrow play scholars of a Victorian poet and poetess, respectively, who discover that their two subjects were romantically involved and find themselves in a race with rival scholars to prove it and change the face of scholarship forever. The film intercuts modern-day scenes of Eckhart and Paltrow falling cautiously in love with flashbacks to the two poets, played by Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle. I found this literal and conventional approach to be the film's biggest failing, and couldn't help but think how much more interesting the film might have been if we had never seen actual reconstructions of the past and were left to visualize it along with the two scholars. However, to be fair, I don't know how that could have been done cinematically, so it seems churlish to hold the writer and director of the film to task for not doing it.Lovers of the book will undoubtedly find much to criticize in the film, as it leaves much plot and several characters out entirely, and is more interested in intrigues romantic than literary, but I thought it was decent. Eckhart is an extremely likable actor, and Paltrow is well cast, if a bit too conventionally beautiful for the role, and the two have quite a bit of chemistry. If one insists on holding the film to the same standards as the novel, it's bound to pale in comparison, but taken on its own terms, the movie is quite enjoyable.Grade: B+

After watching the movie, I now want to read the book. I am a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow. She reminds me of Catherine. This is a great romantic movie that has great flashbacks between 21st century and 19th century England. Great plot. I think the main character played as an American worked - somewhat out of his depth when playing against the the Maud Bailey character - but it seemed natural that they were attracted to each other. Just as Jonathan is attracted to Catherine, and yearns to be close to her, so Roland's and Maud's desires surface and cannot be denied. The story unfolds with elements of mystery that keep you wondering. And, what makes this move for me is that, at the end, all the main characters in the story have "happy endings"... this is what I feel makes for a great romantic movie. If only it was so in real life.