Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7236 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-05-05
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Romanian, Bulgarian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
With its complex twists and turns, AS Byatt's doorstopper of a novel Possession is hardly the kind of tale that translates easily to film, even though its switches in time across more than a century are intrinsically filmic. In this adaptation the basic story revolves around two modern-day academics, Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow, a class act, all ice and severe hair) and the young American Roland Michell (the charmingly diffident Aaron Eckhart). They find themselves thrown together as they track a secret love affair between two fictional Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christable LaMotte (Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle, both of them eminently convincing costume-drama veterans). As our two modern-day sleuths uncover the truth they (surprise, surprise) find themselves falling for one another.

Director Neil LaBute may have strayed from familiar territory (Nurse Betty) but he's managed to translate book to screen with compelling directness, and much credit should go not only to the four leads, but also to Lena Headey, who plays the tragic Blanche Glover, LaMotte's rejected lover. Overall it's a very lyrical movie, visually a treat for the eye, with the period detail beautifully caught and much beautiful scenery to be had. And the score itself, by Gabriel Yared, seems to encapsulate England in its pastoral beauty. Yes, of course the intricacies of the novel are much simplified, with some characters written out altogether, but its central spirit is retained and it makes for an ultimately compelling experience.

On the DVD: Possession has a pleasingly sharp and well-defined picture quality that makes the most of the fabulous visuals. However, extras are limited. As well as a list of cast and crew and the usual scene selections and theatrical trailer there's the option of watching the film accompanied by LaBute's commentary, which is enlightening first time around but probably not for repeated viewing. --Harriet Smith

DVD Description
Scene selections, cast list, director commentary, theatrical trailer
Feature length: 98 mins approx
Subtitles: English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish Spoken
Languages: English, French, Italian Sound Format: Dolby Digital 5.1
Region Code: 2 Picture Format: PAL Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic 2.35:1

Synopsis
Set in both contemporary and Victorian England, POSSESSION, directed by Neil LaBute, is based on the novel by A.S. Byatt. The tale begins with Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), a laid-back American studying the renowned Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) on a fellowship. When Roland discovers what may be a love letter from Ash, a supposedly devoted husband, to the reclusive poet Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), he recognizes that he's on to a big literary discovery. Enlisting the help of skeptical British academic Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), Roland embarks on journey to discover more about the link between the two revered poets. As Roland and Maud track Ash and LaMotte's elusive romance across the British countryside, the two scholars begin a relationship of their own.
Although this film presents a kinder, gentler LaBute--who is known for emotionally caustic movies such as IN THE COMPANY OF MEN and YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS--POSSESSION still focuses on the relationships between men and women with skillful attention. Paltrow reprises her convincing British accent from films such as SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and SLIDING DOORS, while Northam and Ehle lend gravity to their Victorian characters. However, it's Eckhart, a longtime LaBute collaborator, who proves to be the film's heart and soul; his relaxed yet complex personality grounds both the movie and its two intertwined stories. As the two tales progress, the relationships between the characters wax and wane, leading to an ending with a surprising twist.

Customer Reviews

What possessed them?
What is it about films like this? They're based on good source material and attract a good cast but when it finally makes it to the screen it seems as if the furniture is putting in a better performance.

With Possession you're left thinking that this was just another opportunity for Gwyneth to showcase her English accent and nothing more and even she's acting a bit like death warmed over.

There's the usual parade of familiar Brit thesps (Tom Hollander, Toby Stephens, Trevor Eve) all acting up a bit too much in tweeds and making Aaron Eckhart look by turns as if he's not making enough effort or everyone else is really hamming it up. Strangely, the scenes you'd think would be worst, ie the flashbacks to Victorian England are by far the best bits with Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle showing up the American stars by a pair of blessedly understated performances.

I only watched this a couple of weeks ago and I really had a struggle to remember what the ending was; not a good sign. It also suffers from the bugbear of all films like this - constant incidental music simmering away underneath, propping up the performances and telling you how to feel.

I'm off to read the novel now. A film for fans only, and may be not even then.

A sum less than its greatest part
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.)

Victorianism has to be revisited urgently
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