Possession

Rating:
Summary: Fatally cautious
Review: Neil LaBute's adaptation of A. S. Byatt's novel is far slighter than it needs to be. LaBute and co-writers Jones and Hwang wisely ditch most of the poetry and don't even attempt to stage a lot of what Byatt wrote, but in paring the story back to "the essentials" they've forgotten most of what makes it a good one. The Ash-LaMotte romance is ultimately a conventional Victorian tale of adultery, illegitimacy and suicide, but what really makes the novel sing is Byatt's take on contemporary academics: their cut-throat competitiveness, blinkered theorizing, personal obsessions and hunger for fame. These are the energies which drive the plot, and without them nothing is at stake. So LaBute's film winds up being just two drippy love stories and some lovely sets. I guess this is partly because he makes Roland too strong, sidelines Cropper (who could have been a devilish villain), and axes most of the other amusing characters: lesbian-feminist Leonora Stern, the motherly Beatrice Nest, and Roland's hilariously bitter partner, Val. He seems to have decided that a love story involving two attractive and recognisable American stars is more likely to engage an audience. The boxoffice returns suggest otherwise. Moreover, LaBute's version fails to capitalise on the inherent visual drama of many of the novel's key sequences, such as the seance and the stormy grave robbing near the end. The result is a film that feels stilted, reverential, fatally cautious and underdone. It has none of the wit and spark that makes the book come alive. In the hands of a capable comic writer, like Richard Curtis ("Love Actually"), it could have been superb. The cast is good, and much of the little pleasure the film does bring comes from the performances. Gwyneth Paltrow is surprisingly effective as Maud, and Tobey Stephens nails Fergus Wolfe perfectly. Aaron Eckhart is the only exception. Not only is the decision to make Roland an American a bad one, to then cast Eckhart is bordering on ludicrous. This is one case where a director's friendship with an actor is to the detriment of the film.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn¿t quite work
Review: If you loved the novel, the movie "Possession" will be a disappointment but hardly a tragedy. It's entertaining enough, with a diverting performance by Paltrow and a strangely magnetic turn by Aaron Eckhardt. He's hardly believable as an academic, but interesting to watch nonetheless. The period interludes don't fare as well, with Jennifer Ehle making the choice to act only with adoring glances--she seems to think that looking like she belongs in the 19th century is enough. Jeremy Northam is hot as usual, but the whole romance falls flat. The director makes the wise choice to trim a lot of the academic skullduggery and bad poetry of the book, but the scraps of story and atmosphere that are left never hang together. Altogether, not worth a buy, but worth a rental if you're in the mood for something without sex or violence and a few nice shots of the English countryside.

Rating:
Summary: Unimaginative adaptation of a novel made to be adapted
Review: Despite the extremely literary playfulness of A.S. Byatt's ADAPTATION, the novel was basically begging for literary adaptation, given the extremely filmic quality of its exciting scenes. What could be more made for the cinema than the sceance sequence with Randoplh Henry Ash and his lover Christoibel LaMotte, or the final scene at Ash's exhumed gravesite? Yet Neil LaBute and David Henry hwang seem to have been utterly baffled by the material: their adaptation of Byatt's novel is pathetically pedestrian and unimaginative.

Their first mistake was in casting the two modern-day lovers, Maud and Roland, with American actors: as Maud, Gwyneth Paltrow does her prissy unlikeable posh Brit schtick, and to accommodate LaBut's favorite actor, the awesomely miscast Aaron Eckhradt, Roland is made an American, which makes little sense for the character or for the screenplay. Jeremy Northam fares better as Ash (though he is too young yet for the role), and Jennifer Ehle (who looks nmore and more like Meryl Streep as she ages) is by far the best cast among the principals as LaMotte. The only thing the movie really has going for it is Ehle and two other superb actresses splendidly cast as LaMotte's furious and wrong lover, Blanche Glover, and Ash's pathetically trapped wife Ellen. Lena Headey and Holly Aird as (respectively) Blanche and Ellen demonstrate, with Ehle, what this adaptation might have been with a different director and screenplay writer.

Rating:
Summary: The only movie that lived up to the book!
Review: A S Byatt's book, "Possession: A Romance" is one of my most favorite books. The beautiful pace, two stories combined into one, two dreamy romances, all made the book deserve the Booker it got.

Now, films based on movies are a tricky business. I try to avoid them. This one defies the norms. It captures the essence of the book and infact gives an interesting spice to a few of the characters.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys litearture, beauty and love.

Rating:
Summary: Possession Possessed Me
Review: Gweyneth Paltrow is so good in this movie. Everyone should make an effort to see this movie. Has a wonderful literary quality to it. Neil LaBute does an incrediable job directing. Check it out immediately.

Rating:
Summary: What was Neil Labute thinking when he made this?
Review: If you are a fan of Neil Labute, you know that he can be merciless in his views of people and the world But why would he subject himself to a pointless and mind numbing film like this? I barely got though this film with out falling a sleep, and that was an feet all in itself. Aaron Eckhart is better when he is bad, and Gwyneth Paltrow' is fine but look like she would have rather been some where else.

Hopefully Labute will stick to what he knows and leave the stiff love stories to lesser directors.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhere in Time . . .Not.
Review: I wanted to like this movie, I really did. The previews I saw made it look erotically charged, the blurb on the box described it as a 'literary mystery'--right up my street as a literature major with some knowledge of the Victorians--and two of my favorite British actors, Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle, are featured. Gwyneth Paltrow is in the spotlight now with her baby and wedding news, and I hadn't seen any of her recent work. So, I settled in with a chai latte, and high expectations for a sexy, literate urbane thriller.

While the premise of the film--two modern-day literary scholars who are academic competitors unravelling a secret, passionate love affair between two famous (and long dead) Victorian poets and falling for each other in the process--is intriguing, the movie never takes flight and realizes its potential. It goes wrong from the start with the casting of Aaron Eckhart as Gwyneth's fellow partner in literary crime. Mr. Eckhart is not without talent as an actor (for proof, see his turn as Renee Zellweger's boorish, cheating car dealer husband in 'Nurse Betty'), but he can't pull off a romantic leading man part, especially one who is supposed to be intellectual. He's not a bad-looking guy in empirical terms, but he is definetely out of his element opposite Gwyneth Paltrow, doing her usual regally severe ice-queen bit again. Her British accent, though well-done is getting wearing . . .she plays three Brits to every American character, and a British accent does nothing to increase her non-existent warmth and accessibility in this role. The scene where Paltrow and Eckhart's characters, Maud and Mitchell, find themselves sharing the same room in a countryside inn that was inhabited by the Victorian lovers a century and a half prior, and make out in the cramped bed is the most uncomfortable love scene I've ever sat through (and that includes Mickey Rourke's movies!). Paltrow and Eckhart have zero chemistry, and watching them mash their faces together as called for by the script makes for painful viewing. Until now I thought that Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant had achieved zero chemistry in 'Notting Hill', but I was wrong.

Jennifer Ehle and Jeremy Northam play the Victorian lovers, and even though their scenes are regrettably brief, their chemistry together is unmistakable. What a shame they didn't do 'Possession' as a straight Victorian romance and let this pair have the screen the whole time.

As someone else pointed out, 'The French Lieutetant's Woman' with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons is a much better example of parallel love stories. I can't help wondering what Ehle and Northam might have been able to achieve if they'd also been allowed to play the modern lovers. Or at least let Mr. Northam take the Eckhart part--he and Ms. Paltrow were wonderful together in 1996's 'Emma' . . .no doubts about their chemistry together in that film.

If you are a fan of all things English, 'Possession' does have some beautiful exterior scenes of countryside and old manor houses, and as noted by others, the director does achieve some clever and subtle transitions between the two eras. But on the whole, 'Possession' will leave you decidedly . . .dispossessed.

Rating:
Summary: The Purloined Letter
Review: I really liked the adaptation of A.S. Byatt's ANGELS AND INSECTS and I was hoping the film vertsion of A.S. Byatt's POSSESSION would be equally satisfying but it's not. The story is irresistable to English lit types like myself. One day while going through a literay archive a research assisstant finds an original letter written by a famous Victorian poet tucked between the pages of an old book. The letter is a love letter to an unknown lover which is doubly surprising since the poet was thought to have been a devoted husband. The research assistant immediately understands the importance of the letter and so he takes it with the intent of using it to determine just who the poet may have been writing to. Meanwhile the poet is the subject of a major retrospective and anything related to him is fetching high prices at auction so the letter has not only literary value but monetary value as well and so once the existence of the letter is made known intrigue soon follows it wherever it goes. This should have been a really easy movie to make because its got everything from romance to suspense. Unfortunately a bit of miscasting ruins the film right away. Aaron Eckhart is a scruffy blonde American and he is cast as a scruffy blonde American. But the role requires depth and passion for literature as well and Eckhart conveys neither. This actor also has a noted lack of passion for his co-star, Gwyneth Paltrow. This makes both actors look bad. Given a proper co-star Paltrow would have given a stellar performance but she has no one to act with. Eckhart just isn't right. Hes a good looking guy but he looks out of place in a library and he looks bored when hes next to Gwyneth and so we get bored with him. When he crosses paths with Paltrow we are supposed to believe she falls for him precisely because he's not English and so presumably has fewer hang-ups than the uptight restrained Englishmen she usually dates but on the contrary he has more hang-ups than anyone in the film. Maybe she falls for him because he is not intellectually complicated(just emotionally wounded), that would be a reasonable explanation but whatever the reason the chemistry simply is not there. It looks like Eckhart and Paltrow don't want to kiss and so its just awkward to watch them force themselves on each other for the camera. Eckhart hasn't yet learned how to convey a variety of emotions, he always has the same lackadaisical (perhaps self-absorbed) look on his scruffy face.

On the other hand, as virtually every other reviewer has noted, the Victorian love affair between the poet Randolph Ash and his lover Christobel LaMotte which we see acted out as the researchers uncover each strand of their story is very nice and convincing and satisfying. But be warned these period scenes are brief in comparison with the modern scenes. And unfortunately the very competent acting done by the period performers just makes the modern pair look all the more lost when we return to the present tense.

As an alternative to this I would suggest renting THE FRENCH LIEUTENANTS WOMAN (Meryl Streep & Jeremy Irons)instead to those viewers who really want to see a great film which contrasts love and art in two distinct time periods. Or if you are an A.S. Byatt fan I would suggest renting ANGELS AND INSECTS.

Rating:
Summary: Oh dreary dreary me...
Review: Gwyneth Paltrow needs to sit herself down!!

Jennifer Ehle and Jeremy Northam's performances, though strong, cannot save this sentimental and unengaging film from itself. Cliche blends into cliche and it's a definite 30 minutes too long. Paltrow plays a boring English-rose type, (Sliding Doors? Shakespeare in Love?) on the shelf because of her work commitments. She's in a failing relationship. Enter Aaron Eckhart, the young American upstart, who ignites the fires of passion in her cold little heart. Their romance blossoms as they trace the relationship between Randolph Ash (Northam), a famed 18th century Poet, who had an affair with the lesser-known lesbian poetess, Christabel LaMotte (Ehle).

Blah blah blah.

The direction is stagey and flat, and at one point, thanks to some very dodgy background music, the film much resembles an advertisement for the Yorkshire Tourism Board. There's also a particularly memorable key scene involving antique dolls, that's really laughable, thanks to its utter ridiculousness and unbelievable setting. Eckhart is little more than a token Phallus to Paltrow, who whines and bleats her way through all 103 minutes of the movie. In fact, so joy-absorbing is Paltrow's performance in this movie that it totally detracts from Eckhart and the wonderful Jennifer Ehle, who, by themselves, have a decent chemistry and generate the only high point of this otherwise boring picture.

For romantic melodrama, check out classics like 'Now, Voyager', or contemporary pieces like 'Muriel's Wedding', for the comedy angle. 'Possession' will fester where it deserves to be, and in a year's time, people will have forgotten it ever existed.

As it should be...

Rating:
Summary: Classic intertwined with modern
Review: At first, I thought this film was going to be another tale of a predictable sort, in which you find a less than perfect romance being narrated by the evidence of just letters, but this story has many twists and turns. It is superbly acted by its cast, and made beautifully real by its different settings. Thank you to its cast and crew for providing life to such emotinally captivating characters, who show us the truth of human nature.
Well done!