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All-Reviews.com Movie/Video Review
Possession
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 out of 4
| *Also starring: | Jeremy Northam, Jennifer Ehle, Trevor Eve, Toby Stephens, Anna Massey, Lena Headey |
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Review by Susan Granger
3 stars out of 4
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The most romantic film of the summer, "Possession" tells a tale of two
couples, separated by time yet bound together by a literary mystery. Roland
Mitchell (Aaron Eckhart) is an American scholar in England on a fellowship to
study the life and work of Victorian poet laureate Randolph Henry Ash. When he
discovers unfinished love letters, he makes a theoretical connection between Ash
(Jeremy Northam), who was married, and poetess Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer
Ehle). His bold assertion piques the curiosity of an icy British scholar, Maud
Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has been researching LaMotte and her lesbian
companion (Lena Headley). Flashbacks of the secretive Ash/LaMotte liaison are
intercut with the growing attraction between Mitchell and Bailey as they
doggedly pursue their determined detective work, unearthing a surprising cache
of impassioned missives and exploring their chaotic emotional archeology.
Seemingly effortlessly, Aaron Eckhart wraps around his character and few
actresses do repression better than Gwyneth Paltrow, while Jeremy Northam and
Jennifer Ehle are convincing. Adapted by David Henry Hwang, Laura Jones and
director Neil LaBute from A.S. Byatt's 1990 Booker Prize-winning novel of the
same name, it's a deliberate diversion from the darkly comic cynicism of
LaBute's previous work ("Nurse Betty," "In the Company of Men," "Your Friends
and Neighbors") - and curiously reminiscent of the lyrical "Somewhere In Time."
The dialogue, in particular, is seductive, evoking a true appreciation for the
language of love. (For the curious: both Ash and LaMotte are fictional
characters who never really wrote poetry.) On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to
10, "Possession" is a sensitive, sincere 7, an opulent courtship saga that spans
the centuries.
Copyright © 2002 Susan Granger
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