The Possessed (DVD)

Advantages: Nice story
Disadvantages: Far fetched, not brilliant acting

...If you have read my recent review on Gossip DVD, you will know that I also recently had the bright idea to buy a job lot of DVD's from eBay. So, please expect a lot more DVD reviews in the future. I chose to watch this film because I usually like Gwyneth Paltrow and as she was all over the front of the DVD case I guessed she must be one of the main characters. I had never heard of Possession before but as it wasn't too long. I settled down one afternoon whilst my better half was at work and decided to give it a go. Here's what I found out. This film starts with a shot of a lonely looking man walking through what appears to be a meadow wearing very old fashioned clothes, we later find that this is Randolph Henry Ash. This scene seems a bit odd as the subsequent ones are set in the present day. Roland Michell is a literary researcher... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Music, story potential, Jeremy and Jennifer (barely).
Disadvantages: Gwyneth and Aaron, inane and lifeless dialogue, slack pacing.

...It might have been an intriguing premise on paper: a secret love affair between poets from a century and a half ago casts a spell on a modern day couple amid the latter’s sleuthing about said affair. Based on A.S. Byatt’s novel of the same name, ‘Possession’ was apparently intended as a love story-cum-detective mystery. While I did spot a few mysteries in the film, they had little to do with the plot itself (see later). With this film, US director Neil LaBute has accomplished a topological trick that few will find amusing: he has converted a potentially multidimensional drama of romantic secrets into a flat, two-dimensional portrait of tedium. The book, I suspect, is better. The film opens with American Roland Mitchell. During his stint as a research student at the British Museum, Roland makes what seems to be a significant... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Plot, casting, scenery, twists, music
Disadvantages: If you like action movies, this is not for you

...Adopted from A. S. Byatt prize winner novel, "Possession" is an intimate, heart-warming, and easy to watch film. Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), an American research assistant struggling to be accepted within the English academic circle, realises his luck might be about to change when he comes across compromising letters written by the highly acclaimed Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northan). If his suspicions prove right, all studies to date on the poet’s life will be deemed inaccurate. Eager to find more, Roland seeks help from Dr. Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), an academic teaching at Lincoln University. Maud is a specialist in Christabel LaMotte’s (Jennifer Ehle) work, an understated Victorian writer, who Roland suspects might have had some untold connections with Ash. Despite Maud’s initial scepticism to Roland... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful