Possession

Rating:
Summary: 2/3 of it should be flushed
Review: I really worked the fast forward button with this one! The contemporary "love" story between Paltrow and the poorly cast, "brush-n-flush" American actor was the pits. (I guess the director just HAD to work with this guy.) The Ash/LaMotte story is the only part of it worth watching. Too bad there wasn't more of it.

Rating:
Summary: No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed
Review: "Possession" is one of the most romantic movies I have ever seen, alongside Tom Tykwer's "Heaven." A double-edged tale of love, passion, and words that can entice or betray, this is one of the few masterful films that actually brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful acting, beautiful direction, and one of the most amazing love stories ever seen in a movie.

Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), a brash young American scholar, is studying an old book of the famed poet William Randolph Ash when he encounters an old love letter. After some digging, he theorizes that it was addressed to the more obscure poet Christabel LaMonte -- but both poets were either married or in a long-term relationship. If he's right, it would rock the literary world. He seeks the help of Maud Bailey, a cold feminist scholar who has a particular fondness for Christabel's work. Maud tries to bring him down to earth by explaining that Christabel was a lesbian, but Roland is undaunted.

They travel to Christabel's old home and unearth a cache of letters between Ash and Christabel, hidden away by her lover. It tells of a love affair that was doomed from the start: The correspondence first inspired respect, then friendship, then a burning love. Finally, Ash (Jeremy Northam) and Christabel (Jennifer Ehle) escape to the countryside for a few weeks alone. Those few weeks will mar the rest of their lives...

Like all adaptations, "Possession" strays a bit from its original work (Roland is made American rather than English, many supporting characters are omitted). But the spirit and tone of the story are close to the book. The core of the story is words. Words that are hidden and words that reveal, words that could change a person's life or perceptions -- depending on whether they are read by the one they are intended for. Even the name of a little child can change a man's life, and his perception of the woman he loves.

But more than that, it's an illustration of love in its different forms: There is the passion of the soulmates, Ash and Christabel; and there is the gradual warming and closeness between Maud and Roland. As Randolph Ash says, "There are many kinds of love." Even though the modern love story is okay by movie standards, it's pale and insubstantial compared to the Victorian love story. (Maybe this is because Maud and Roland have the POSSIBILITY of a deep attachment, whereas Ash and Christabel have full-fledged, undeniable feelings). This film isn't afraid to show love in all its glory and beauty, its pain and intensity.

The direction is beautiful and stately, with the shots of waterfalls and majestic old houses. And Neil LaBute is amazing at choreographing little hints of tension and attraction. He handles the shifting from one era to another expertly; one wonderful scene pans away from Maud and Roland, to rest on Christabel.

Aaron Eckhart does a solid job as Roland; he's pretty charming and twinkly-eyed, but not outstanding. Gwyneth Paltrow has a little trouble making Maud sympathetic, but she manages it (sort of). It's Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle who steal the show. They radiate emotion, so much so that merely glancing at one another has significance and substance. Lena Heady and Holly Aird also give moving, if brief, performances as Blanche Glover (Christabel's ex-lover) and Ellen Ash (Ash's wife).

This is a movie for lovers and true romantics, those who can appreciate the beauty of the love story. While not perfect, it's a haunting and beautiful story, one of the most moving romantic movies I've ever seen. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Where was the poetry?
Review: The only reason I gave this movie 2 stars instead of 1 is because of the redeeming force of Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle who portrayed the poets Ash and LaMotte. Otherwise, I was rather dissapointed with this adaptation of A.S. Byatt's "Possession: A Romance". It could have been SO, SO much richer in the hands of, say, A&E Home Video (who brought us "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth) where it could have breathed for the full 5 hours it would need to properly portray this novel.

LaBute was not totally without some servicable directing in this film (i.e the footage of Ash and LaMotte) but what WAS he thinking when he cast Aaron Eckhart as Roland Michel?! Part of the romance of the book is in its assured Victorian "English-ness" (both past and present) and the subtle mirroring of the relationships between Ash/LaMotte and Michel/Bailey. Eckhart as a brash, petulant, swaggering, American "cowboy" does not mirror the subtle, deep, passionate, conflicted, yet gentlemanly Ash, nor does he compliment Paltow's Bailey.

Finally, where was the poetry? Where was Melusina? Where were the gods and the fae? Besides the metaphorical poetry (which ONLY occurred between Northam and Ehle), where were the beautiful verses around which Byatt's "romance" revolved? It was as if a main character in this story ended up on cutting-room floor.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating!
Review: It seemed that this movie was in and out of the theaters before this gem could find its audience. No doubt it languished in the shadows of some big box-office turkey.

This movie is smart, interesting, intriguing, well-acted, well-directed...I could go on and on. I was attracted to it because of Jennifer Ehle and Jeremy Northam (both who can do no wrong in my opinion). I was interested to see how Aaron Eckhart would pull off the role of an intellectual (and he does hold his own quite well) and Gwynneth Paltrow nicely underplays her character.

This is a thinking-person's movie -- as noted by other reviewers, one does need to pay attention as the clues that drive the plot are quietly revealed without much "here's a plot-point" fanfare within the script. The romance of the story stops short of making this a "chick flick" so both men and women will find this interesting and satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: No English Patient
Review: The comparisons with the English Patient will come up. Possession the book and the English Patient the book both won the most prestigious prize in the English Commonwealth, the Booker Prize. Both are deeply moving. Both are romances between people of different classes or nations. Since the English Patient made a heckuva good movie, they must have figured that Possession would too. To my mind Possession was the superior book because its emotional punch was much more intense. You'd figure therefore that Possession would make a better movie.

You would be wrong. The film of the English Patient takes a theme of the book (that aristocrats are really stuck in teenage rut) and turns it into a Wagnerian opera, complete with smoldering stares and obsessive stalking, topped off with a heavy dosage of death. The film of Possession is a silly soap opera. The characters make banal misinterpretations of each other that we are familiar with from daytime television and someone figured this would give us suspense. Where the book's modern-day romance climaxes with the glorious orgasm of a woman who at last knows what she wants, the film ends with characters hugging and kissing. That's a threshold? Give me a break. And the historical romance isn't half as Derridian as it's supposed to be, since they haven't discussed male and female naturecultures. "A letter always finds its destination" said Lacan. Derrida agrees with some heavy provisos. ("A letter always finds its destination, provided its destination is nowhere.") Where I was crying at the end of Possession the book, I was left wondering what on Earth they were thinking with the film.

As for the acting. Mostly good, given that everyone is hemmed in by a redundant plot line. I'm still obsessessed with Gwyneth Paltrow and I'll see as many of her films as I can. Too bad this isn't Shakespeare in Love.

Rating:
Summary: Donald Kaufman's "Possession"
Review: Those unfamiliar with the A.S. Byatt novel on which this film is based may find Possession to be nothing more than incompetent, a stunningly dull costume drama in which energy and effort seem to have been expended only upon the costumes.

If we look a little closer we may note that the film doesn't include an actual scene (you know, more than a couple lines of dialog, more than a minute long, no dodgy explanatory voiceover from hundreds of years in the future...) until nearly an hour in. We may notice that director LaBute has somehow kneecapped his theoretically excellent cast in a manner that can only be compared to George Lucas' inexplicable mugging of Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson -- and LaBute manages this without a greenscreen or casting Jar Jar Binks.

But those who have read Possession will recognize something more sinister that mere incompetence afoot here. Doubless the lengthy and poetry-heavy Possession is a tough tome to adapt for film, but why would LaBute and listed co-scenarist David Henry Hwang take the book's most distinctive character, awkward British scholar Roland, and turn him into some kind of smug, swaggering, American action movie wiseacre? Why take the completely original Maude and Roland romance and transform it into beat-by-beat Hollywood romantic comedy/drama sludge? And to add insult to injury, why have timid Roland indulge in some (then) untimely French-baiting, as if he was along for National Lampoon's European Vacation?

LaBute and Hwang, respected playwrights, surely cannot have written this scenario. In paying close attention we detect the distinctive script-doctoring of "Adaptation" co-scribe Donald Kaufman. Only Kaufman's particular flair for "finding the story" could have turned such a distinctive novel into this generic Hollywood swill, as cynical as it is incompetent.

Rating:
Summary: Scholars chasing a scoop
Review: As a former academic, I can hardly express how repellent this film was to me. Scholarship is confounded with the spectacle of lying cheats and pretentious [imitations] (literally) digging up dirt, with the avidity and indecency of news reporters chasing a career-making scoop. The script gives almost no sense of the potential value of their find, and Paltrow and Eckhart's characters are so emotionally stunted that they wouldn't know a great love story if they uncovered one. And they don't. The Victorian affair they unearth so diligently is sheer literary melodrama -- the Barretts of Wimpole Street spiced up with Lesbianism and adultery, as phony as Eckhart's perpetual two-day beard. The major Victorian poet is a droopy-eyed pup. The minor Victorian poetess is irresponsibility personified. When her abandoned female lover takes desperate measures, she blames the male poet and punishes him with breathtaking cruelty. Of course, it's not necessary for characters to be admirable for a film to be. The problem with Possession is that the audience is clearly expected to admire characters who cannot be taken seriously. Of course, it may be that I fled academia because this is how academics truly are, what scholarship has truly become, and what poetry has been reduced to. In any case, a star each for costumes and cinematography, none for story and characterization.

Rating:
Summary: The past will connect them. The passion will possess them.
Review: "Possession" is one of those movies where as soon as it is over you want to go out and read the novel upon which it is based the better to be able to enjoy the full tapestry of the story. Reading A. S. Byatt's 1990 Booker Prize-winning novel would also allow you to better appreciate the adaptation by David Henry Hwang, Laura Jones and director Neil LaBute, which offers some interesting and creative approaches, both in terms of the story and how it is portrayed cinematically.

The story is essentially a romantic mystery. American Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) is working as an assistant to a literature professor in London doing research on Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam), a poet Laureate during the reign of Queen Victoria. Roland discovers some letters from Ash that suggest the poet, a paragon of devotion with regards to his wife, had a romantic relationship with Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), a minor poet and apparent lesbian, at least according to the historical record that exists. Roland enlists Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), a English scholar who studies LaMotte, and the two begin their journey as literary detectives.

Of course a romantic relationship will develop between Roland and Maud as they are caught up in revealing the past of Randolph and Christabel. However, I have to admit that I was much more interested in the detective work unlocking the secrets of the lovers from the past than the slowly developing romance between the two scholars. Actually, I was much more interested in the romance of the two lovers in the past rather than in the present. This is not only because my academic interests are extremely sympathetic with unraveling the meaning of ancient texts, but also because the two poets have more hurdles to overcome in the romance department. After all, Eckhart and Paltrow are so good looking that their physical union is no more in doubt than their intellectual coming together. This film might actually have benefited from having less better looking leds in terms of this particular story.

LaBute gets points for the rather seamless way that he shifts back and forth between the past and the present as letters and locations allow us to slip back and forth between the two. I also have a real affection for films that still do the old trick of having stage hands move things around so that a total transformation is achieved on a set within a single panning shot back and forth. But what makes "Possession" so memorable is the powerful final scene and the haunting final shot, which is where this 2002 film achives its own sense of the poetic.

I am hard pressed to explain why I am only giving this film four stars given how much I like it; my best guess is because the film is only 102 minutes long and because this is a literary adaptation I cannot help but think this is the abridged version. There are a few deleted scenes available on the DVD, but they do not indicate anything substantial missing from the film. I also wanted to lose myself more in the story of Randolph and Christabel, and the Victorian world in which they lived. I really liked this film, but what I really wanted was to love it.

Rating:
Summary: Warm and exciting....
Review: I adored this movie, it was exciting in the terms of the two characters uncovering a long ago love affair between two poets and finding a little more than they ever dreamed of! The ending was not a real surprise, as the movie continuously shifted to give you the conclusion... however, the film is quite warm and endearing. This is a must see for all that love a good romantic movie, with a little mystery.

Rating:
Summary: If you like your movies rich with a Twist at the end.....
Review: Then this one is for you. I happen to love Period Flix and this one does not dissapoint in my opinion, I was never once interested in moving from my chair once the movie began... BEWARE this is also one of those that if you get up and come back a moment later you may miss something essential to the story. If you see my other reviews you'll see that I devour romance novels, well this movie was like watching one of those come to life.

Jeremy Northam and the Jennifer Ehle are remarkable in their potrayal of the 2 Poets, their words were moving and whomever selected them for these roles did a outstanding job.. during the movie their voices are heard reading passages from their letters to one another.. Jennifer and Jeremy's voices sound so sincere and passionate it wraps you in to this story from GO.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart were believable as the 2 present day people trying to piece together a mystery from the past. I loved this movie because the 2 stories were interwined so smoothly, their were no loose ends left untied and everything made sense in the end. I haven't read the book that this movie was made from but since seeing it I have been on the Auction sites looking for the original book.

If you like your movies with a "twist" at the end I would also recommend {The Red Violin} it is another period flick with a incredible story that keeps you seated throughout.

Respectfully Reviewed