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Possession

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Human passion is the ultimate mystery.

Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) discovers that the Victorian era poet Randolph Ash (Jeremy Northam) had a secret affair with a lesser known poet, Christabel Lamotte (Jennifer Ehle), even though he was married and she was a “chaste spinster”, and the subject of the other scholar, Doctor Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow). As the two scholars investigate the romance between their subjects they find themselves wrapped up in the romance as well...

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film romance history poetry university scholar

Persons of interest

Aaron Eckhart .... Roland Michell
Jeremy Northam .... Randolph Ash
Jennifer Ehle .... Christabel Lamotte
Gwyneth Paltrow .... Maud Bailey
Trevor Eve .... Professor Morton Cropper
Toby Stephens .... Fergus Wolff
Anna Massey .... Lady Bailey
Holly Aird .... Ellen
Felicity Brangan .... Lucy
Craig Crosbie .... Hildebrand
AS Byatt .... Possession: a romance
Laura Jones .... Screenwriter
David Henry Hwang .... Screenwriter
Neil LaBute .... Screenwriter
Neil LaBute .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Possession official movie site
Possession movie trailers:

Studios and distributors:

Roadshow Films

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

I started watching Possession with no small amount of trepidation: a film about two academics studying two dead poets. I'm surprised that anyone would put up the money for movie with a story like that. Fortunately, Possession turned out to be a well-crafted, well-written, well-performed romance.

In other words, a chick flick with bells on.

With no pretence to subtlety, life imitates art (or in this case, history) and the two academics just happen to be former underwear models who fall in love, just like the objects of their obsessions. The pleasure in this case is in the journey: various mysterious loose ends are slowly ravelled until the historical romance informs the modern one and everyone lives happily ever after (except for the bad guys, but they don't deserve happiness, do they?). Ah, love. Did I mention that this is a romance? It's a romance.

There are plenty of genre identifiers (aka clichés) but Possession is a romance so you'd feel let down if they weren't there and it does manage to leave you feeling somewhat warm and fuzzy. Not as good as eating chocolate, but what is?