Possession

Plot synopsis:
A newly separated couple Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Stephanie Brenek (Kyra Sedgwick) live in different homes. After Clyde picks up their two children, Emily "Em" (Natasha Calis) and Hannah (Madison Davenport), for the weekend, they stop at a yard sale where Em becomes intrigued by an old wooden box that has Hebrew letters engraved on it. Clyde buys the box for Em, and they later find that there seems no way to open it. That night, Em hears whispering coming from the box. She is able to open it, and finds a tooth, a dead moth, a wooden figurine, and a ring, which she begins to wear. Em becomes solitary, and her behavior becomes increasingly sinister; she stabs her father in the hand with a fork during breakfast. That night, the house, especially Em's bedroom, becomes infested with moths.
At school, Em violently attacks a classmate when he takes her box, resulting in a meeting with Clyde, Stephanie, the principal and the teacher. Em's teacher recommends that she spend time away from the box, so it is left in the classroom. That night, curious about the mysterious noises from the box, the teacher tries to open it, but a malevolent force, the dybbuk, murders her by violently throwing her out a window. Em tells Clyde about an invisible hag who lives in her box who says that Em is "special". Alarmed by her behavior, Clyde attempts to dispose of the box. During their next weekend at Clyde's, Emily gets progressively more upset with the disappearance of the box. She begins yelling at Clyde in the hall with Hannah watching in the back. The dybbuk seems to slap Em across the face. She begins yelling, asking why he's hitting her, from Hannah's perspective it looks like her father actually does. Em flees the house, recovers the box and the dybbuk begins conversing with her in a strange language.
Clyde takes the box to a university professor who tells him that it is a dybbuk box that dates back to the 1920s; it was used to contain a dybbuk, a dislocated spirit as powerful as a devil. Clyde enters Em's room and reads Psalm 91; a dark but invisible force throws the Tanakh across the room. Clyde then travels to a Hasidic community in Brooklyn and learns from a Jewish priest named Tzadok (Matisyahu) that the possession has three main stages; in the third stage, the dybbuk latches onto its human host, becoming one entity with it. The only way to defeat the dybbuk is to lock it back inside the box via a forced ritual. Upon further examination on the box, Tzadok learns that the dybbuk's name is "Abyzou", or the "Taker of Children".
Em has a seizure and is taken to the hospital for an MRI. During the procedure, Stephanie and Hannah are horrified when they see the dybbuk's face in the MRI scans next to Em's heart. Clyde and Tzadok join the family at the hospital and attempt to conduct an exorcism. Where Em is taken to a room that has a tub full of water and a stretcher to keep Em stable during the exorcism. During the exorcism, the possessed Em attacks Tzadok. Clyde grabs Em from him, and Em runs out of the room. Clyde follows her out and finally finds her in the morgue where the lights are off. As he nears her, she starts to attack him. Clyde survives the attack, but the dybbuk is passed from Em to him. Tzadok performs a successful exorcism; Abyzou emerges from Clyde and crawls back into the box. The family is reunited, with Clyde and Stephanie's love rekindled. Tzadok drives away with the box in Clyde's vehicle. The car is hit by a truck, killing him. The box lands safely from the wreckage, and Abyzou's whispering is heard from it, the same Polish rhyme heard at the beginning of the film.

Tags: murder, flashback

Review:
The clues come in the form of journal entries, love letters and snippets of enigmatic poetry that, when pieced together, afford a glimpse into the inner yearnings of these two young, but essentially unrequited lovers.As a narrative, `Possession' runs on two parallel tracks, one set in modern times (that's where the detective story aspect comes in) and the other set in 1859, as we learn the details of the romance that took place between the writers.
In the contemporary plot strand, Aaron Eckhart stars as Roland Michell, a handsome young American research assistant who has come to England to study the work of famed poet Randolph Henry Ash, a writer with a certain misogynistic strain who nevertheless enjoys the rather unique reputation among poets of having been utterly faithful to his wife.
Confronted with this startling, revolutionary and, perhaps, priceless piece of information, Roland sets out to unravel the mystery, accompanied by Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), an expert on the life and work of Miss LaMotte (and a distant descendant of that famed poet in the bargain).`Possession' earns points automatically simply by providing us with a unique storyline and a fascinating glimpse into a world we have rarely if ever seen portrayed on screen - the world of literary investigation.
Based on the novel by A.S. Byatt, the David Henry Hwang/Laura Jones/Neil LaBute screenplay provides highly charged scenes between our two romantic couples, particular those involving Roland and Maud.
This film offers some gorgeous visuals and some great performances - notably those by Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle (a bit of a casting joke since those two are famous for playing Jane Austen's Mr. Knightley and Elisabeth Bennet, respectively) - but as a literary adaptation, the movie falls short on too many points.
For some unfathomable reason, the screenwriters have decided to cut out completely two crucial characters from the modern-time storyline - Val, Roland's girlfriend, and the feminist (and Lesbian) researcher friend of Maud's, whose name I forget  - their equivalents in the Victorian period are Ash's wife, and Christabel's lover Blanche.One of the main interests of the original story lies in the ways in which the relationships between those characters have changed because of the changes in society that the 20th century has brought - particularly the way the main characters relate to each other (significantly, Maud is the stronger and more successful person in the modern-time relationship) - but also with respect to all the other characters involved (Roland and Val's relationship, which is based almost exclusively on sex, as contrasted with Ash's and his wife's relationship, which is entirely sex-less - the point here being that in a truly fulfilled relationship, these two things must be in balance).Also, the characters, particularly that of Roland, are bent and twisted beyond recognition - I have nothing against Aaron Eckhard or his performance, but he simply plays a completely different character from the Roland Mitchell of the novel - who is *not* brash (nor is he celibate), but has a certain mousy-ness about him that is quite essential to the plot.
Judging from the director's commentary, the main reason for casting Eckhard was that he's a buddie of director Neil La Bute's - it's a sad thing that the filmmakers decided to twist the character and plot to accomodate the actor, rather than making a more informed casting choice, as I am sure there are plenty of suitable British actors out there that would have fitted the part admirably.Gwyneth Paltrow offers a convincing enough performance, and is well-cast as Maud Bailey - a woman whose physical attractiveness stands in the way of her being taken seriously as the bright academic she is.
But she is not being given enough scope to be the reserved intellectual she is supposed to be, because her relationship with Roland developes far too quickly, and with not enough plausibility (particularly given a certain lack of chemistry between the two actors) - thereby missing another of the main themes (and contrasts) in the novel.Having said that, the film is worth watching for its final five minutes alone - and incidentally, this is the one scene that catches most accurately the spirit, and the point, of the original novel..
It's just too bad that we don't see more of why he likes Ash so much and what really motivates him to take up the literary chase with Maud...and this is why I would recommend to anyone who's enjoyed the movie that they should read the book...it will amaze you how much LaBute managed to keep in, and it will astound you to become more acquainted with the quadrangle of characters and their individual passions and motivations..
Following her performances in "Emma", "Sliding Doors" and "Shakespeare In Love", for the fourth time Paltrow adopts an impeccable English accent.This time she plays an academic specialising in the work of an obscure 19th century poet called Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle, whom I enjoyed in "This Year's Love").
She is approached by an American researcher, Roland Michell, played by a permanently unshaven Aaron Eckhart, who has discovered a possible romantic connection between LaMotte and fellow poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam, last seen in that other costume drama "Gosford Park").
Because, as this film so richly reveals, love indeed lives eternal, and is borne on the very same flame throughout the ages.Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), an American, is in London on a fellowship researching the life and work of 19th Century poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam), poet laureate to Queen Victoria.
And what follows is a journey of discovery for Michell and Bailey; about the tenets of truth, history, and most importantly, about love.LaBute, Laura Jones and David Henry Hwang wrote the screenplay for this film, adapted from the novel by A.S. Byatt.
In Ehle's Christabel, we discern a character of independence and strength, beneath which lies the romantic nature of the poet; in Northam's Ash we find gentleness and charm, a dreamer who seeks out and finds that which is beautiful and good about the world, the spirit of which he manifests in his work.
The bad news is that the director only put his heart into one of the story lines, namely the costume one, and as a result, the modern day lovestory between Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart as literary sleuths suffers greatly.
Nevertheless, Possession makes for an OK diversion into quasi-romance.Starting in the positive end then, period-junkies Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle are breathtaking to watch as poets during the Richmond period in England.
The graceful words in their letters even invests the film in a lyrical flow of sorts.For our modern day story, Gwyneth Paltrow plays the icy literary expert Maud Bailey, who is also a descendant of Ehle's character, but clearly lacking in her passion.
Eckhart plays an American literary researcher in England who stumbles upon some long lost and completely unknown love letters by a Victorian poet (who just happens to be having his centenary celebrated!)  He pairs with an icy doctoral researcher (Paltrow) and they begin to piece together a heretofore undiscovered relationship between the married poet (Northam) and a fellow poetess (Ehle) who is involved in a long-standing lesbian love affair.
And so does "Possession," also based on a novel and beautifully realized by  Neil LaBute,  a sensitive director with an outstanding leading cast.Set in England with a side trip to France, "Possession" follows the path of laconic American scholar "Roland Mitchell" (Aaron Eckhardt) as he works for an eccentric Irish academic.
The "period" portion of the film is excellent, mainly due to some uncharacteristically good directing by LaBute and excellent acting by Jennifer Ehle and the always great Jeremy Northham (if there was any justice this guy would be a major star).Sadly the modern day characters are not played by actors of such caliber.
He clearly had no insight into a character who is supposed to be this sophisticated, and instead played him as a stereotypically cartoonish American male slob who inexplicably loves English poetry (and is a scholar to boot!) Add in some truly bad writing, dialogue and a screenplay that suffers from logic gaps and you've got a frustrating movie that might have been good but ultimately isn't.
The supremely literary and ambitious novel by A.S. Byatt has been streamlined into a more conventional love story for two beautiful Hollywood actors in this screen adaptation directed by (of all people!) Neil LaBute.Aaron Eckhart and Gwyneth Paltrow play scholars of a Victorian poet and poetess, respectively, who discover that their two subjects were romantically involved and find themselves in a race with rival scholars to prove it and change the face of scholarship forever.
The film intercuts modern-day scenes of Eckhart and Paltrow falling cautiously in love with flashbacks to the two poets, played by Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle.
(Perhaps I need to give his other movies another look.)  Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart were beautiful to look at and enjoyable to listen to, and made the impossible task of reading letters on screen seem easy - and interesting.
Unfortunately, despite it's acclaimed art-house director and cast of well-known actors, "Posession" falls firmly into the latter category.A graduate student of Victorian-era poetry named Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhart) has stumbled onto a potentially fascinating discovery: two famous poets, Howard Ash (Jeremy Northam) and Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle) may actually have been lovers.
The 1850's lovers, Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle, aren't exactly better, but they have chemistry, which makes them more appealing.The film isn't a total loss; it looks great, and I always have a special place in my heart for historical mysteries (even poorly done ones).
When you have watched so many good English period dramas, this one really astounds you with its dreadfulness.Byatt must be fuming.There is a total absence of true English character in this most English of books,we have only a few glimpses of priggish people who say "old chap".The director really should have spent more time in England before making this film, he might have learnt something of the wit,intelligence and subtly that makes English films so terrific.The highly overrated Gwenyth attempts her own version of the English reserve as Maud ,but manages to do it in such an unoriginal and obvious way that she should have just stuck a sign on her head that read "repressed English person with a clip folder".Lebule uses the revolutionary metaphor of Maud taking her hair out of a pony to signify her final release from rigidness.One can only conclude that he has been watching to many American sitcoms where the librarian takes of her glasses and unties her bun and begins her rolling love affair.This film really gave me a greater appreciation of actresses like Emma Thompson who plays a 'maudesque' character in sense & sensibility but does it with so much more insight and orginality..
S. Byatt's Possession, the girlfriend & I were looking forward to watching the DVD.Unfortunately, someone (presumably director Neil LaBute) decided that it would make a better movie if Roland were recast as (this is how he put it in the fragment of "director's comments" that I glanced at) "a brash American...to give the movie more 'spark'".That's like casting Pee Wee Herman in the lead role of Conan the Barbarian ("we thought his manic antics would lend new energy to the role").Aaron Eckhart mugs and smirks his way through the whole movie, apparently under the impression that he's Harrison Ford in a remake of Star Wars and Professor Maud Baily is spoiled Princess Leia.
So many compromises have been made to get this richly textured novel onto the screen that where the book interwove the stories in a fascinating counterpoint, convincing in voice and detail, the film is simply a bog-standard romance between good-looking actors with some pretty victorian stuff tacked on.You have wonder about the wisdom of even attempting to convert a book which is powerful tribute to the power of words and language and turning into a would-be powerful tribute to Gwyneth Paltrow.
I was even quite disappointed in Jennifer Ehle, whom I loved in "Pride and Prejudice." The only performances I liked at all -- but not quite enough to actually make me want to finish watching the movie -- were Jeremy Northam's and Lena Headey's.I know most readers will hate me for this, but if you've ever read the book, don't bother with this movie.
Having had some time to reflect on it, though, I feel I'm able to put a few of my thoughts out more concretely, and maybe my impression of the film will shape itself through my writing.Basic synopsis of the film, to start: Roland Mitchell (Eckhart), an American scholar living in England, comes across a pair of mysterious letters written over a hundred years previously by poet laureate Randolph Henry Ash (Northam).
The film shows the parallel stories of the 20th century investigators and the 19th century lovers, and how the two relationships change as time passes.Firstly, the "good": Northam and Ehle are fabulous.
But Roland and Maude dig further, finding out far more about these two long dead people than they ever expected.As this mystery and investigation is going on in the present day, the movie begins to flash back to the 19th century story.
The melodramatics come on a bit strong towards the end like some old silent movie plot, and the second or third bed room scene in the present seems to become boringly dull, nevertheless, this love story or love stories are a testament to love and its ability to pass through time, the mystery of letters, historical records, the permanent remains of passion that exist from past to the future.
American Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) discovers clues to a secret love affair between Victorian era poets Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) and Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle).
As Roland and Maud make further discoveries, they fall for each other.It's very weird that every character comments on Aaron Eckhart being an American and there's Gwyneth Paltrow playing a Brit.
However Possession has kind of ripped the guts out of the novel so the mirroring is not as evident.Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhart) is a brash American scholar in London studying the works of English poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) whose poetry was devoted to his wife.Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) is an English academic researching the life of a lesser known Victorian poet Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle) who was also bisexual.Mitchell has discovered letters that appear to link both poets as secret lovers and therefore put a twist to what is known about Ash and his devotion to his wife that would create a literary scandal.
POSSESSION is a handsomely produced romantic affair combining both modern and period romance skillfully with overlapping flashbacks that delve into the research being conducted by GWYNETH PALTROW and AARON ECKHART as they gradually fall under the spell of romance themselves.Its leisurely pace and artistic trappings make it the ideal sort of romance for viewers who like relationship tales rather than a constant stream of fireworks.
JEREMY NORTHAM and JENNIFER EHLE are impressive as Victorian lovers caught up in an illicit relationship.Paltrow is more appealing than usual even though her role is rather one dimensional and Eckhart is appealing as the American doing his earnest research believably.
Of course, I haven't read the book, so I don't know just how important the modern story is to the readers in this film, but I think the screenplay, acting and direction in the period piece is just more intriguing and much, much better done.I listened to a bit of the director's commentary, and he mentioned taking a screenwriter's license to changing the original story so it would work the way he wanted it to, which I think is a shame, because I have heard the book is such a good read.
The differences between the scenes involving Paltrow-Eckhart and Ehle-Northam are like the differences between Victorian and Romantic literature.
However, the movie is overall good entertainment for a few hours.The atmosphere of Possession is very engaging and does use effectively some beautiful scenery.Furthermore the story between Ash and Lamott is what kept my interest during the film.
I'd recommend it to people who like romantic dramas and lovely sets, not really caring if the story is a bit thin.This movie has at least inspired me to go and by the book!Hope it will do the same to you!.
So, if you want some romance, poetry, great landscapes, some humor and a great story, then check out this great movie with Gwenyth Paltrow (Shallow Hal, The Talented Mr. Ripley), Aaron Eckhart (Erin Brockovich, The Pledge), Jeremy Northam (Amistad, Gosford Park) and  Jennifer Ehle (Wilde, Sunshine).
A scholar, Roland Mitchell(Aaron Eckhart) finds a letter written by a poet, Randolph Ash(Jeremy Northam), who is loved because of his fidelity and adoring passion for his wife, Ellen(Holly Aird), which reveals itself through his poetry.
A scholar, Roland Mitchell(Aaron Eckhart) finds a letter written by a poet, Randolph Ash(Jeremy Northam), who is loved because of his fidelity and adoring passion for his wife, Ellen(Holly Aird), which reveals itself through his poetry.
In "Possession", a rough-hewn American poetry researcher in England (Eckhart) meets a lithe and icy Brit (Paltrow) and together they retrace the footsteps and thoughts of a renown English poet laureate of the mid-1850s, methodically piecing together unknown portions of his life involving romance, love, infidelity, and more, all the while falling in like with each other while trying to outwit their competition.
The contemporary story pairs up Gwyneth Paltrow and LaBute regular Aaron Eckhart as two literary historians who get caught up with one another as they uncover surprising new information, via a chain of age-old love letters, of a torrid, highly discreet affair between two unlikely Victorian poets, played in flash-back by the charismatic Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle.
All I have to say is well done Neil LaBute, Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam, Jennifer Ehle.