Possession (2002) (Possession (DVD))

Member Name: beckstrous

Product:	Possession (DVD)
Date:	30/10/02 (140 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great cinematography

Disadvantages: Does not do the book justice

================================================== ========
*****This category is for a 1981 film called Possession and I'm writing about the 2002 version, which isn't even a version as such as they're two totally different movies. I *know* this is in the wrong category, but there's nowhere else to put it. I guess this shows up yet more flaws in the new dooyoo - please forgive me for sticking this review here.*****
============================================== ============

In 1990 A.S. Byatt won the Booker Prize for Possession, a weighty tome that begins in a cavernous London library and plunges into Victorian literary society as a series of letters between two fictional poets - thought not to have known each other - are discovered by two academics. The novel unfolds a romance between the poets - Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte - and also between the two academics, penniless postgraduate Roland Mitchell and uptight professor Maud Bailey.

The novel is over 500 pages long, and if you're not a fan of literary fiction you may find it a little heavy-going in places, particularly the author produces substantial extracts from the poetry and writings of the imagined poets. I studied English at university, so I enjoyed it - and I was intrigued to see how it would translate onto the big screen.

American director Neil LaBute - responsible for the excellent Nurse Betty - decided to tackle this ambitious project because he is a fan of the novel. His success is partial: the film is enjoyable enough, but nothing like as engaging as the novel - and I couldn't help thinking that it had been a little too Hollywood-ised for my liking.

Gwyneth Paltrow gets the chance to give her English accent another airing for Maud, and it is again flawless, note-perfect - probably even more English than mine. She gives a decent performance, but Maud has been translated into something of a stock character: a slightly snobbis
h, posh, frigid English academic.

Roland is played by Aaron Eckhart: nice to look at, plenty of charisma - but too American. In fact, Roland - who is English in the book - becomes a US citizen for the film, presumably because Eckhart couldn't do the accent, and this became a little bugbear for me. You see, the novel does have an American element - the competitive, showy rival academic Mortimer Cropper - but he barely features in the film, and this is a shame. Roland should have remained an Englishman, because turning him into an American shifted the balance of the novel and wiped out the sense of transatlantic rivalry it created.

There are some English faces in the film, though: Ash is played by Jeremy Northam, and LaMotte by Jennifer Ehle, and they feature in a series of flashbacks, while what the film sees as the real romance - that between Maud and Roland - is played out as the main story.

But Maud and Roland find their love all too easily, and there is no sense of the initial competition and rivalry between them - not to mention Maud's aloofness towards Roland - that characterises the first 200 pages of the novel. It's a shame that this part of their relationship was glossed over, but I suspect there's a lot the film would have had to cut out anyway: even as it is, it seems a little plodding at times.

Still, it's not a bad movie. I enjoyed it, even though it only scratches the surface of the novel and rather pales in comparison. It's a shame that Byatt's characters have been stereotyped somewhat, and this takes the edge off what I thought was a powerful story. The cinematography is fantastic, though, taking in London and the wilds of Yorkshire - some stunning landscapes, beautifully shot. I suspect this is more of a "chick flick" - I know a guy who abandoned it halfway through! - and although it's not exactly the film of the year, it's worth seeing if you're interested in lite
rature and period drama.

Summary: