Possession
2002, PG-13, 102 min. Directed by Neil LaBute. Starring Gywneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam, Jennifer Ehle, Trevor Eve, Anna Massey, Toby Stephens.
REVIEWED By Kimberley Jones, Fri., Aug. 30, 2002
One poet, a lesbian living in Victorian England, writes to another, her married lover: “No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.” It's a lovely sentiment, full of passion and verve, yet one not taken to heart by the participants in this dual love story spanning two centuries, taken from A.S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning 1990 novel. Christabel LaMotte (Ehle) and Randolph Ash (Northam) are the (fictional) poets in question, already committed and contented in long-term relationships, until they meet one another by chance and begin a clandestine courtship in letters. Roland Mitchell (Eckhart), a corduroy-clad American grad student conducting research at the British Museum, and Maud Bailey (Paltrow), a frosty Brit and gender studies professor, are their 20th-century counterparts, clashing academics keen to uncover the heretofore unknown affair between LaMotte's feminist icon and the poet laureate Ash. The film moves seamlessly between the time periods: The camera glides from the 19th-century blossoming love between LaMotte and Ash to the modern-day flirtation of Maud and Roland as they unearth new evidence of the poets' affair (a paper chase condensed for the film to an absurdly breakneck pace -- and who knew academic research could be so darn sexy?). Previously, filmmaker and playwright Neil LaBute has been noted almost exclusively for his writing (In the Company of Men, Your Friends & Neighbors), but here, he distinguishes himself as an able visual stylist, with a fluid camera and an admirable sense of framing. Interestingly, it's the words (he co-wrote the script), and the sentiments they convey, that fail him here. Much has been made of Possession's distinct swerve in style for LaBute; his earlier works are caustic meditations on the failures of love, cohabitation, even humanity. On paper, a move into swooning melodrama might not seem logical. But despite their pessimism -- or perhaps because -- LaBute's previous films have been passionately charged works, making the director more than equipped to handle Possession's fieriness. Or so you'd think -- one has to wonder if Byatt's romanticism and LaBute's pessimism have simply canceled each other out (a cynical conclusion, to be sure, but then cynicism is one of the writer/director's most definable traits). The direst casualty is the film's sense of ardor -- it too has been neutralized. Roland and Maud are meant to make some awful clanging noise when they meet, but the boisterous Yank vs. stodgy, stultified Brit matchup is uninspired. (Curiously, Roland's character in the novel was in fact a working-class Briton, but his nationality was changed for the film.) Christabel and Randolph's relationship spins on a more compelling conflict, yet they seem swathed in Masterpiece Theatre piety, and their love -- born of letters -- is poorly translated to the screen. The film is by no means a disaster. Possession is prettily performed, prettily put-together. Yet, for a story set so firmly in the center of a fire, LaBute and his players have suited themselves in some mighty flame-retardant threads.
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Robert Faires, March 8, 2013
Richard Whittaker, Sept. 9, 2022
Kimberley Jones, April 23, 2010
March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024
Possession, Neil LaBute, Gywneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam, Jennifer Ehle, Trevor Eve, Anna Massey, Toby Stephens