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Year:    2002
Studio:  Warner Brothers Pictures, USA Films
Movie:   2/5
DVD:     2/5

Possession is a slow moving film set in Britain. Two scholars, Roland (Aaron Eckhart) and Maud (Gwyneth Paltrow), delve into the past as they search for clues of a heretofore unknown secret romance between Elizabethan England poets Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) and Christabel Lamotte (Jennifer Ehle).

This is an rather slow moving film, based on a best-selling British novel. We follow the two couples: the scholars finding more clues and the poets acting it out. There are more secrets revealed. The whole affair of the two poets reflects on the relationship between the two scholars, who only met as a result of this finding.

I found the film quite boring. The whole poet romance is so prim and proper. Meanwhile the two scholars are also being rather British even though the male is an American. And then to inject a bit of excitement into the film we have a subplot where a couple of modern scholars want to find the secret papers for their own selfish reasons.

It's just not a movie that appealed to me. I guess you have to be a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow or the book or of British period pieces. There is a commentary track by director Neil Labute (which is also rather droning). He points out a couple of places where he didn't do it as Hollywood would do it in order to make it more real. But it also makes it uninteresting. I don't recommend seeing this film.

Copyright (c) 2006 Kevin C. Wong
Page Created: January 21, 2006
Page Last Updated: January 21, 2006