REVIEW:
It's horrible, when you think about it, men and women together. We can't seem to help but tear each other apart." Talk to me, Gwyneth Paltrow-tell me all about it. Coscreenwriter-director Neil LaBute's adroit adaptation of A.S. Byatt's best-selling literary romance does not stop, however, at showing the way the sexes tear each other apart (exemplarily demonstrated in LaBute's In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors). It also depicts, with disarming grace and abundant wit, how they can help put each other back together again.
Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart, a LaBute stalwart, play a couple of young academics-she's a frosty Brit, he's a too-loose Yank-who forge an unlikely partnership researching a heretofore unearthed chapter in the life of 19th-century English poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam). The couple's deepening affinity is played out parallel to the story of Ash's secret affair with another poet, Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle). LaBute, collaborating on the screenplay with Laura Jones (The Portrait of a Lady) and David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), juggles the two story lines beautifully, cleverly hinging much of the present-day action on an intriguing dueling-researchers subplot. Much of what is said and done in both the present and past segments is harsh indeed, but the quality this movie eventually resonates with is one of humane consolation. Said quality will not necessarily please LaBute fans who look to his movies for validations of their own wretchedness (such people exist, believe me, and if you should ever encounter one, run like hell). But it's a quality that's hard to come by honestly, and LaBute does; he's a distinctive artist whose vision just continues deepening.
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Possession
Release Date: August 16
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam
Directed by: Neal LaBute
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Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.