Possession

Rating:
Summary: A sum less than its greatest part
Review: I recently saw Jennifer Ehle's splendid performance as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1996 A&E production of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and therefore anticipated another such appearance in POSSESSION, wherein Ehle plays Cristabel LaMotte in that half of the plot that takes place in England in the latter half of the 19th century. I wasn't disappointed.

It's 1859 and Cristabel and the poet Randolph Ash (Jeremy Northam) become mutually attracted, even though the former is currently involved in a relationship with a same-sex lover and Randolph himself is married. After an initial period of emotional fencing involving lots of note passing, the two take off to Yorkshire together for a private tryst, after which things get enormously complicated as such things are wont to do. To my personal satisfaction, Ehle's Cristabel could be seen as an older and wiser (?) version of her earlier Elizabeth persona, perhaps as might have evolved if Jane Austen's P&P had been extended in time to the point where a disillusioned Elizabeth dumps Darcy. In any case, this part of POSSESSION is a deliciously played and sumptuous period romance that, by itself, rates five stars. I think I'm in love with Ehle myself.

Unfortunately, POSSESSION has a gimmicky subplot (or is it the main plot?) grafted on. In this one, it's present day London and Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), an unkempt American scholar specializing in Victorian poetry, is doing a research fellowship at the British Museum. One day, he stumbles across a previously unknown letter to an unnamed addressee, penned by the now-famous Randolph Nash, which indicates that the poet was in love with the recipient, a woman not his wife. This is totally inconsistent with the commonly held belief that Ash was completely devoted to his spouse, and had directed all his love poems to her. After some initial sleuthing, Roland focuses on Cristabel as the "other woman", and enlists the help of Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), another specialist in Victorian poetry, to investigate and potentially prove the LaMotte/Nash liaison, thus setting the literary world on its ear. As Maud and Roland retrace the trail of the 1859 lovers through Yorkshire, even going so far as to stay in the same hotel room by the sea, they expend great emotional energy avoiding their own emotional and physical intimacy, both being scarred from previous relationships. This half of the film rates three stars purely for being so unnecessary to an otherwise excellent story.

Please don't get me wrong. Gwyneth Paltrow is her usual beguiling self, and she plays her role most adroitly. So does Aaron Eckhart for that matter, though I personally found him and his scruffiness totally obnoxious. Throughout his entire time on screen, presumably over a plot timeline of several days, Michell's 3-day growth of beard is apparently in suspended animation. Didn't studio Make-Up realize that over such time a beard will either grow or get shaved off? And couldn't Roland have run a wet comb through his hair once a day whether it needed it or not? Moreover, the Maud/Roland interaction is made increasingly ridiculous by an additional subplot involving academic skullduggery by an oily academic from - you'll never guess - New Mexico. And then there's that corny bit at the end where Maud finds out who she really is. Oh, puhleeze!

By all means, see this film for the richness embodied in the 19th century story, and try to tolerate the other. (Let's see. Five little piggies plus three little piggies divided by two equals, um, four.)

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable movie, but could have gone deeper.
Review: Possession is a film with an interesting concept: exploring
the lost history of two tragic lovers through the eyes of two present day, would-be lovers. The modern day researchers, Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), are portrayed as being total opposites. She is an elegant uptight Brit, he's an easygoing, rough and ready American. One of the problems, in my mind, of the film is this play between British and American stereotypes. There are several shallow observations by one side or the other about "you Americans" or "you Brits" that are so simplified that they seemed cartoonish. Surely there could have been a better way to heighten the conflict or add some comic relief. The poets who they are researching had an affair in 1859, and the film flashes back to this time and shows how this unfolds. Maud and Roland
track this mystery by visiting places where the poets met, and making discoveries along the way. A strong point of the film is the back and forth from past to present, especially when the past and modern lovers are occupying the same spaces.
The film never goes too deep (even when dealing with very deep issues), but remains engaging and entertaining nonetheless. It seemed that the characters didn't receive enough development, especially the poets (played by Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle). I think the concept of the film was a little narrow for the possibilities, and it left me wishing that more of this story had been told. Gwyneth Paltrow was excellent in this role, and there were some other good moments, such as the elderly owners of Christabel's old estate.
Despite its flaws, the film is worth viewing for its interesting plot, especially for those who have ever found an old letter or photo and speculated as to what life was like in a far gone time. It is not a serious drama, and maybe this is what the director was going for. This lighter tone (supported by the British/American stereotypes) makes it easier to watch then a heavy drama, but leaves some unanswered questions and might be out of place with the content of the story. That said,
it is certainly entertaining and enjoyable, and is more worthy than many of Hollywood's offerings this summer.

Rating:
Summary: Can I Give It Zero Stars? Please, Please, Can I?
Review: This is a train wreck from start to finish. (Come to think of it, a train wreck would have given it some life.) Oh, wait, let's not be too harsh, there is one good line about 10 minutes into the film: "You cut me, madam." "Really, sir? I only meant to scratch."

Based on the novel by A.S. Byatt -- and I have to wonder what SHE thinks of it -- this movie plumbs that sure-fire box office hit genre .... literary sleuthing! Research assistant Roland Mitchell (Eckhart), feckless, but sensitive (you can tell by the light graze of stubble he wears) American loose in London, is looking through a century-old book when he finds a draft letter containing the nugget of a scholarly bombshell -- a previously unknown love affair between two prominent Victorian poets Randolph Henry Ash (you know he's historically important because everyone uses his middle name!) and Christabel LaMotte. Whew, I need to pause here before the excitment of this discovery overstimulates my heart.

There, that's better. Soon the movie is cutting back and forth between the present -- where Eckhart pursues the clues with Maud Bailey (Paltrow), the reigning authority on LaMotte -- and the past as RHA (Jeremy Northam) and CLaM (Jennifer Ehle) court by letter, meet and, after much guilt and hesitation (he is married, she lives and loves a woman artist), bed one another. If Byatt weren't such a respected novelist, this plot would be what the paperback book industry calls a bodice ripper. It obviously owes a major debt to the hugely superior French Lieutenant's Woman.

Here are just a few of the movie's problems: there is zero chemistry between Eckhart and Paltrow -- even when you allow for the fact that they are portraying repressed academics with a history of unsatisfactory relationships. Paltrow and Ehle are both supposed to be strong, liberated women, but they spend large parts of the movie gazing upon their male love interests in wide-eyed and tongue-tied adoration. (In Paltrow's case, however, I may be mistaken; she may actually be in stunned amazement at how Eckhart can have precisely the same amount of stubble at every moment of every day, a hirsute trick of the highest order.) The climatic graverobbing scene at RHA's tomb (don't ask), obviously meant to be serious, plays like a ludicrous cutting room outtake from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Fortunately, my wife and I had passes and didn't have to pay to see this mess. You shouldn't either.

Rating:
Summary: Northam was wonderful, but the rest did not fare so well...
Review: There is no way that the movie, just shy of two hours as it was, could cover all the ground that the book did. I expected it to lack a great deal of the details and nuances that were in Byatt's novel. However, I was almost shocked at the very important aspects of it that were absent, not even touched upon, and others that were entirely changed.

Those familiar with the novel will no doubt balk at what is presented. The focus is intent upon the contemporary couple, but the sense of their academic world, caught expertly in the novel, is decidedly lacking in the film. Maud gives in quickly, with precious little hesitation, to Roland. There is no "electric charge" marking their awareness of each other, signaling the passion that was eminent between them, as there was on the page. One of the major points of the novel is that both couples struggle with the idea of possession, self-possession and being possessed by another, but that, too, is missing in the film.

Paltrow was a good choice for Maud Bailey, though she played her not as the cold, intellectual feminist, but as an emotionally present woman, eager to fall into an "us" situation with Roland. I had never encountered Aaron Eckhart before and in all honesty I can't say that his performance was particularly impressive. He did not fit my vision of Roland nor did he seem adequately caught up in the whole affair(both of the letters and with Maud)to have carried them out to the length that the character did.

Jeremy Northam was wonderful. I rarely have a complaint with him, but he suited the role of Randolph Henry Ash so remarkably that his scenes, though there weren't nearly enough of them, made the movie for me. His voice carried the poems his character was suppose to have written so beautifully, truly capturing the time and atmosphere. And the heat that I found so lacking in the passion that Ash and LaMotte shared in the book was fully present in Northam's gaze and carriage. If any true potential was to be found in the film it was in Northam's capable hands. Jennifer Ehle, as much as I loved her in *Pride and Prejudice*, didn't shine brightly enough to rival her co-star. Her LaMotte was too...smug...she was always smirking and you wondered if she really cared for Ash at all.

If you have never read the book, but think that the movie looks interesting, let me forewarn you that it is slow and rather plodding. There is nothing dynamic in the mystery nor in the way that it is solved if one is to think about it. That is perhaps because it all falls in to place so easily and neatly. It is not a bad movie by any means, but after it is over and you are leaving the theater I think you will reflect on it as a rather mediocre experience. Neither myself nor the individual I saw it with had a strong reaction to it. We didn't love it, we didn't hate, but we're not really sure just how much we liked it either.

It seems very unfortunate that it was not even slightly more engaging. If there had been more of the story between Ash and LaMotte I think that it would have heightened the pull, drawing the viewer in and making them care. But the Victorian aspect is all too brief and the rest just not interesting enough.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie version of a very great novel
Review: A. S. Byatt's novel POSSESSION is probably my favorite novel published in the last fifteen years, so, is the movie as good as the book? Of course not. I think all lovers of movies and books know that it is virtually impossible for a movie to capture all the things that a novel can do. But is this a good, respectful, satisfying movie version? Absolutely. I emphasize "respectful." From his three previous films IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, and NURSE BETTY, it had Neil LaBute is a talented, innovative, and more than a little quirky director. I was somewhat concerned that the quirkiness that served NURSE BETTY so well, would mar POSSESSION. But while LaBute had to make some inevitable changes to be able to shrink the novel down to a film of a couple of hours, none of these altered the story in an unacceptable fashion.

The two female leads are scintillating. I don't remember Gwenyth Paltrow looking more beautiful, and yet it is not impossible to accept her as an academic. Jennifer Ehle, as the 19th century poet, has relatively few lines in the film, but manages to do more with looks and glances than most actresses can do with reams of dialog. These two performers did a great deal to assure the success of the film as a whole. Jeremy Northam was excellent as the 19th century poet who bears a vague resemblance to Tennyson/Browning/Arnold. One of the glories of the novel was how real and vivid Randolf Henry Ash was. Northam isn't given many opportunities to display his talent, but his main function is to serve as a convincing icon, and in this he succeeds marvelously. The one character who is changed significantly from the novel is Aaron Eckhart's Roland Mitchell. Instead of being British, he becomes American, and instead of living with a lover (whose relationship has grown stale), he is devoted to avoid all romantic relationships. I am sure simplifying the story for adaptation necessitated his being made unattached, but his being made American was, I am sure, a way of working Aaron Eckhart, an extremely close friend of LaBute and someone who has appeared in all his films, into the screenplay. When I first read of the movie version about three years ago, I read that Ralph Fiennes was going to be playing Roland Mitchell. While Eckhart was very fine, I do regret the loss of Fiennes in a role for which he would have been perfect, and which would have departed less from the novel.

So, as a lover of the novel POSSESSION, I have to say that I was extremely satisfied with the movie. The movie retains all that is truly essential in the novel, and treats the source material with great respect. The movie also retains one of the loveliest endings that I have encountered in all of literature.

As a last comment, I would like to add that as one of an academic bent, I loved the book in part because it felt so marvelously familiar. Apart from several novels by David Lodge, the academic lifestyle gets very little literary treatment, and virtually no cinematic treatment. Perhaps a few scientists (A BEAUTIFUL MIND) are found in films, but I can't think of a major film since LUCKY JIM that featured post-high school academics. So, for me the film had that added interest.

Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as the book
Review: I loved A.S. Byatts's novel so I almost loved this film. I still give it a 5 because it was so well done. I really didn't think they could get the essence of this Romance ( meaning fiction). I imagine that many will not like this movie because there is quite a bit of pre-knowledge required such as an appreciation of Victorian society and the literature of the time. The acting is very good: Paltrow and Eckhart very believable and Jeremy Northam is gorgeous as usual. The excellence of Byatt's writing, her turn of phrase for the 19th century letters and poetry is so good that I just knew I would be disappointed in the movie but I actually thought it very well done. Not a movie for everyone though.

Rating:
Summary: Great Romance
Review: The trailers made this movie look like a mediocre love story, but in reality this is a highly involving romance. The two stars fit very well together, and their characters were very interesting. This is one of the best romance movies of the year so far.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie, offensive content
Review: Yes, the movie was surprisingly good. Much better than you would expect from a Hollywood picture.

However, I found much of the content offensive. I don't enjoy seeing lesbian relationships. And the main character steals several things. And of course, there's the adulterous sex scenes. OK, maybe I'm overreacting. But I prefer movies where the characters are more admirable.

I did enjoy the movie in spite of these things. The relationship between Paltrow and Eckhart was very well done. But I hesitate to recommend the movie very strongly, because of the offensive parts.

Rating:
Summary: huh?
Review: I give this one 2 stars for the period sequences. I found the actors in these scenes were very good..much better than the scenes starring Ms. Paltrow and her companion. I got bored with this movie very fast. The only thing that kept my attention was the story behind the story. I really wanted to love this movie.

Rating:
Summary: "No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed"
Review: One of the protagonists of this movie says that "No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed". In a way, that reflects the dilemma of the main four characters in their quest for love and passion. Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) and Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), experts in English literature, discover a link between Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) and Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), through a letter one of them stole. As they investigate how important the link between those well-known Victorian poets was, a relationship begins to grow between them, despite the fact that neither of them was eager to start a relationship. But what are the differences between these couples?. It is easy to see that Ash and Christabel plunge into a love affair and are somehow consumed by it and its consequences. On the other hand, Ronald and Maud are so aware of the possible emotional consequences of a failed relationship that they don't want to run the risk of heartache, and thus try to avoid the "fire" that true passion involves.

As you probably already noticed, this film doesn't have one love story: it has two. One takes place in the Victorian period, and the other in our times, but both are closely linked. The question is: can a love affair from the past bring a modern couple together?. And if so, how, and why?. The plot is pretty simple, but well developed. The director (Neil LaBute) somehow managed to reflect the progress of both love stories at the same time, so the spectator cannot help but compare the way in which both relationships developed, and the conventions that were important in each time. I specially liked the role that the letters that Ash and Christabel sent each other (and that Roland and Maud discovered) played in the film. They were truly engaging, and the perfect complement for the uniformly good acting and the perfect English scenery.

On the whole, I think this is a good movie, but not a great one. It lacks that "something" that makes a viewer remember a movie well after watching it. Despite that, not all movies can be unforgettable classics. Sometimes, if they are at least a good way to pass time and relax, that is enough. In my opinion, that is the case here. If you like a good romance story with some elements of literature and poetry, try this movie: you'll have a good time :)

Belen Alcat