I love this movie so much

Sick Product of a Sick System

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I liked this film; and had no concerns whatsoever about watching it, despite the relatively low financial return, which I don't understand and also, the relatively mediocre percentage on Rotten Tomatoes, which I also don't comprehend - the latter of which I generally check before watching a movie, the former to see whether it's an indie or not.I guess that this genre is not for everyone; to me it's a Jane Austen with added intrigue or a sophisticated Dan Brown with less intrigue.There is lots of innuendo and suggestion, which unfortunately is generally bluntly explained shortly thereafter; it would possibly have been more interesting to keep it more mysterious and therefore make the viewer think longer than a few seconds.I enjoyed it overall and would recommend it to those of a literary bent, it's not a popcorn flick.

I never would have figured Neil LaBute for an A.S. Byatt fan, but he seems to have been the one that saved this project from development limbo. I thought Gwyneth and Aaron Eckhart did just fine as the modern lovers—they're like one of those Hitchcock couples that get handcuffed together and then fall in love. It might have been better if we'd seen more of Ash and LaMotte, the Victorian poets (especially as embodied by the radiant Jennifer Ehle), but this standoffish, screwed-up, commitment-shy pair are clearly LaBute's kind of people. The script gets a little goofy at about the halfway mark, but that's really Byatt's fault, IMHO. On the very first page, she warns the reader, via an epigraph from Hawthorne, that the writer of a "romance" can get away with stuff (paraphrasing here) that a regular novelist can't. After the trail goes cold, she summons up two huge honking coincidences to keep our young scholars on the case. In the novel a goddess ex machina—specifically an American lesbian cultural-studies prof—turns up with a crucial journal, and in the film you have to be paying pretty close attention to figure out why they're in France all of a sudden; later on, Eckhart's character just happens to overhear the baddies plotting their next move. Despite a few rough patches like this, I'd still recommend the film to fans of the novel; not sure what others will make of it. Great care was obviously taken with every aspect of the production; nice to see a younger, brunette Lena Headey, of "Game of Thrones" fame, as LaMotte's other lover.

Possession is a romantic and mysterious film based on the novel of the same name by A. S. Byatt.It film tells the story of two scholars, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, who investigate the affair of fictional Victorian era poet Randolph Henry Ash, described in letters between him and another fictional poet, Christabel LaMotte.The movie stars Aaron Eckhart,Gwyneth Paltrow,Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle.It is written and directed by Neil LaBute.While the film probably won't leave you swooning, it is at least an earnest love letter to its transcendent source.It consists of quality of the acting, and the Brits -- Northam and Ehle -- invest their forbidden love with centuries of fine repressed English tradition.Despite the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart lead the cast, their performances as modern characters rank second to Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle.Unfortunately,what is supposed to be a deep examination of the transcendence of love and art and poetry turns into another shallow film about how repressed the British are.Aside from acting,there is nothing else about this film as it pass as either an After School Special for adults or a Love Story for the new millennium.Or worse,a closeted comedy.

Maud and Roland are brilliantly performed by Paltrow and her fellow lead, however LaMotte and Ash are the ones that will capture at once your interest! I ranked this film with an 8, mainly because I liked it even better than the book itself!!! The core of the story is all there, but the truth is being revealed at a faster and more appealing pace, without the long poems, short stories, diary entries and other literary works (not to mention other subplots) that the novel is full with...The only cost in those omissions were the philosophical battles behind both authors' writings and of course the significance of LaMotte's magnum opus "Melusina" for herself and literature, that is only mentioned once and in a harry at the film by Ash, as "the Fairy Project"...Another point that should be more emphasized in the film would be the various meanings of the title word (possession) as they are used in the book. The main question was whether "we own/possess the ones we love?". Also, the point that Roland started his research by keeping letters that were not in his possession... And..."the letters should belong to the senders or their receivers?" Also... there is a pun with the alternative meaning of "possession", that is "an idea or maybe a feeling that takes possession of your mind, an obsession".I am grateful to the writers that left outside the film some irritating characters, like Roland's fiancée and the two other female scholars (one expert on Ash's wife and another expert on LaMotte)...