Possession
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Movie Reviews of Possession
Movie Review: No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed
Summary: 5 Stars
"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.
Movie Review: Great movie version of a very great novel
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Movie Review: Victorian fundamentalism has to be revisited
Summary: 5 Stars
Delicate and precious, the film deals with a very embarrassing victorian reality about the poet Ash and his female lover Lamotte. This latter had made the choice of lesbianism, one way to escape the victorian fate for women : to be a totally subservient wife. She falls in love with the poet through a long correspondance and finally yields to desire and passion. She will be pregnant and will deliver in France away from prying eyes. Her female lover will kill herself and she will forever lose her poet-lover, the father of her daughter. She will have lost everything, including her own daughter who will consider her as a distant aunt and will forget to bring her the letter her own father, the girl being completeley unaware of the identity of the man she encounters in the countryside, had entrusted her with for her aunt/mother. Hence the possible renewing of the relation will die away and the secret will disappear. The film though is not very clear on one point. The investigation is jointly managed by an American research assistant and a professor, Maud Bailey, who is presented as a descendent of Lamotte, who is known as having had no male lovers. This of course tells us at once that this Lamotte must have had a lover and the film then becomes the search for the identity of this great great great grandfather of Maud's. The surprising element is that this Maud had not investigated before, though and because she had no lead, but what they both find could probably have been found earlier if it had been looked for, if Maud had really been serious about that lover of a great great great grandfather, which she had not once and for all locked Lamotte in her lesbianism. Till at least the American research assistant comes along... The film though is extremely interesting because of the mirror image the two modern characters send us : they are shy and definitely unwilling to enter a love affair of any kind, both the man and the woman, this time for no victorian reasons at all though the motivations are not clear : modern time desire of both men and women to be autonomous and free from such dependence as sex and love ? Maybe. Probably. Thus the film gets into a higher dimension that implies victorianism was not a monstrous period but only a step on a long road that leads to the freeing of individuals of both sexes without falling in promiscuity and other non-ethical attitudes. We are living in a period where ethics are becoming again the guidelines of individual lives. The film also gives us a nice foot-note about the unethical practices of some university professors and personnel to put their hands on some documents that had been entrusted to a tomb and whose existence had been discovered by some other colleagues who these dishonest professors and personnel are trying to rob of their discovery : such acts are quite common in the academic world, even if marginal, though at times some may feel justified in asking the rhetorical question of how much marginal.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne
Movie Review: Possession
Summary: 5 Stars
I must disagree with the scathing reviews I have read here. I have become very jaded with movies...a long line of endless clones blending together. This movie stood out from the crowd!
I was totally captivated and am throughly enchanted each time I watch it. I love the skillful way in which the producer entertwined the past with the present. It was as though the past love affair had transcended time to envelope the modern couple. They recognized the love of the past couple and came to experience it themselves.
I could feel how spellbound the modern couple was in discovering the details of the past, and how it affected them as a couple falling in love. The way the new loves went to the same places and viewed the same scenery with the same awe was very well done. You could sense them moving through the same stages of their love affair, although their circumstances were different.
I disagree that the modern couple was not perfectly cast.
They were the perfect contrast and made the victorian couple all the more entralling. I found all 4 actors/actresses completely believable and perfect for the story. They all possessed a sensualness and passion that was quite palpable.
The love scenes were very tastefully done and not at all vulgar and explicit as some are these days.
The first time that I saw this movie, I found myself caught up in both romances...feeling the longing, joy, and dispair of starcrossed lovers; feeling the trepidation, yet excitement,
and overwhelming pull of the new love as they discovered not only the love of the past, but their own growing love.
I think this movie shows how love transcends time. It also shows that our lives and love impacts others sometimes in ways that we never know and lend assurance that though we are born and die, love perseveres.
I was hooked from the first moment and wasn't bored for an instant. I am now eager to read the book that inspired this movie. I commend the writer for this marvel of a story; as well as the director and actors for their portrayal of this mesmerizing story.
The scenery was breathtaking and contributed to the overall feel of sensualness and passion.
In my opinion, this movie should win all sorts of awards.
This movie is probably my favorite movie of all time. It left me feeling that although the victorian couple had only a short time together...they were always in love. The modern couple learned from that past love and didn't have the same obstacles...their love was enriched by the love of the past.
Movie Review: A Fascinating Film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a mature, intelligent film (based upon the fictional novel (by the same title) by A.S. Byatt) starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle. Aaron Eckhart plays Roland Mitchell, an American graduate student working at a museum in London who stumbles upon a previously unaccounted for original letter, written by the (fictional) Victorian poet laureate, Randolph Ash (played by Jeremy Northam). The particular letter is of a rather racy nature and turns out to be directed to another poet of the day, Christabel LaMotte (played by Jennifer Ehle, who is the aunt, thrice-removed of (present-day) gender studies professor, Dr. Maud Bailey-played by Gwyneth Paltrow). In an effort to verify the connection that seemingly existed between the two 19th Century poets, Roland consults Maud, who is an authority on LaMotte's writings and personal life. As a result, the two find themselves caught up in an independent investigation into the relationship between the two poets and unearth the startling discovery that Ash and LaMotte were actually lovers.
The reluctant romance that ensues between Roland and Maud as they doggedly pursue their investigation is contrasted interestingly by the flashback moments in the film of the similarly love-shy, Victorians. Northam and Ehle, two veteran period actors, shine in their respective roles and the strong chemistry shared between the two is electric. The set designs and sumptuous costuming (particularly true of the Victorian shots in the movie) are lovely and help transport the viewer between the present-day parts of the movie and those which occur during the middle of the 19th Century.
"Possession" is a fascinating, suspenseful story about romance and inhibitions. While Roland and Maud tenaciously pursue their investigative work, the viewer also becomes acquainted with the political and highly competitive nature of scholarly study in the world of academia. As is normally the case in regard to matters associated with intellectual property, big money rides on the results; Roland's and Maud's joint research draws the attention of less-than-scrupulous colleagues, who launch their own investigation in an effort to also re-write literary history.
"Possession" will appeal to anyone who enjoys a love story or detective story, since both elements are combined beautifully in this film. The acting is top-notch and the story is believable and cleverly presented.