Be possessed by intertwining tales of love, British accents
By Anne Negri

Most romantic films that play at your local movie theaters include bland characters, corny dialogue and plots that are so formulaic that you know the entire story and its sappy ending after seeing the previews. Once in a while, these films will have some redeeming qualities, like Reese Witherspoon's comedic performance in Legally Blonde, but for the most part I avoid these films like the plague. Right now, you're probably thinking that I'm a cold-hearted movie snob. Not so. A movie snob, maybe, but I believe in romance just as much as anyone else, maybe more. However, I like movies that are challenging, subtle and surprising. Director Neil La Bute's new film Possession is a film with true romantic sweep and sophistication.

The screenplay, written by David Henry Hwang, Laura Jones and La Bute, is based upon A.S. Byatt's prize-winning novel by the same name. As a sidenote I have not read Byatt's novel, so I will not be able to make a comparison between the book and film. The story concerns two interweaving love stories, one in the present and one in the past during the Victorian period. The plot concerns Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhart), an American scholar, who, while researching Victorian poet Randolph Ash (Jeremy Northam) in the British Museum, happens upon some mysterious letters Ash wrote to a woman other than his wife.

The love letters are addressed to Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), a famous feminist and lesbian, whom Ash had only met once. Roland realizes that if he can prove there was a link between the two, it would throw the literary world upside down. His research leads him to Brit Maude Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), a LaMotte scholar. The literary sleuths uncover a passionate love affair between Ash and LaMotte as they also begin to fall in love. However, as both stories continue, the couples encounter problems that could destroy their bliss.

Paltrow, Eckhart, Northam and Ehle give excellent performances. At first Maude comes off as icy and acid-tongued, but Paltrow reveals the character's sensitivity and intelligence as she learns to trust Roland. Paltrow nails the English accent so perfectly every time she tries, (Shakespeare in Love, Sliding Doors, and Emma) that I sometimes suspect her of being a Brit doing an American accent for all of her other films.

Aaron Eckhart, as the hunky Roland, portrays a man who has been hurt by love in the past and is very wary of starting something new. Eckhart is such a chameleon. You may remember him as the cruel misogynist in In the Company of Men, the flabby husband in Your Friends and Neighbors, the jerky, mulleted husband who gets scalped at the beginning of Nurse Betty or as Erin's sweet and hairy biker boyfriend in Erin Brockovich.

The dashing Northam (Emma and Gosford Park) and the bewitching Ehle (BBC's Pride and Prejudice), the two true Brits, always seem at ease in a period setting.
Possession is director Neil LaBute's fourth film. His first two films, which he wrote and directed, In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, are both extremely negative films that reveal the height of human cruelty and our inability to truly communicate with one another.

But I truly enjoyed his third feature, Nurse Betty. While it had some romantic elements, it was still reminiscent of his earlier films. Before I saw Possession, I wondered why LaBute would make such a gigantic leap to a romance when his earlier films seemed to suggest a jaded skepticism in terms of love. After seeing the film, I realized that LaBute's ideas are still there; passion does not come without consequences and love is not easy.

Possession is a great intellectual romance for those who are sick of the stupid romances Hollywood usually churns out. The characters are interesting, the story is rich, and maybe, just maybe, the lovers won't end up together.

From The College Days: 9 October 2002