Possession starring Sarah Michelle Gellar & Lee Pace
The more I think about Possession the more I like it. I originally gave it a “B -” but now it has moved up to a solid “B +”. It does what the BtVS soul-body swap episode Who Are You and the tv series Dollhouse never could and it does it very well. It makes me (a self-professed judger and self-righteous moralist) care about every single individual involved in a story about someone tricking someone else into loving and making love with them, a person learning how to change and being loved by someone that only sees the good in you while simultaneously exploiting the inspiration for the transformation, sneaking remorselessly amid the personal connection of lovers and pilfering the affection and trust that was built between them to satisfy your own desires and emotional needs, and showing how pretending to be someone better than yourself can challenge you to improve your lot in life and to realize that maybe you really did always have what it took to be better.
I think the film would have faired differently among critics and viewers and would’ve been understood and thus enjoyed a lot more had it been marketed accurately. It was NOT a sci-fi thriller. It was not meant to scare and excite you in the same way as House of a Thousand Corpses and Poltergeist. It wasn’t about things that jump out of the corner to attack you or hideous monstrosities and blood and gore (the one memorable scene involving blood was artistic and symbolic). You’ll feel uneasy and definitely feel as if something dirty sick happened before your eyes and may feel like you were watching a truly horrible but ultimately human monster of a man. But this was not your typical or even your atypical horror film and there were no creepy crawly creatures that make you want to sleep with a light on or backwater cannibals teaching about the fatal stupidity of hitchhiking. All of the horror took place in quiet but meaningful looks and gentle caresses, recitations and heartbreaking revelations.
Possession was a twisted love story. A psychological and philosophical treatise. It was an extremely complex and emotionally dark tale that broke taboos (quasi-rape, a girlfriend-beater impregnating his widowed sister-in-law/former defense attorney) and made you think. It wasn’t really about Jess and her doting husband and whether he could find his way out of the abyss to stand by her side and live happily ever after with her--though the idea that it really is Ryan is just as engaging since it brings up whether it is wrong to be in a sibling’s body and living the life he desperately wanted with the woman he had an unrequited love for knowing that the only way he could ever have her is by being taken over by you.
The alternate ending of Jess choosing to stay with Roman and even being thankful for his charade--that someone loved her enough to be willing to spend the rest of his life pretending to be someone else, that in a way he gave her back her husband, he gave her the chance to be the perfect wife instead of the imperfect widow--felt truer to the point of the film and made a much superior and more interesting ending. Ryan was obviously a good man but nothing more than the means by which to progress the story, the living device that entangled the different character arcs, and his life and death (again, I prefer the alt-ending involving his plug being pulled and ashes sprinkled in the garden) gave much valued insight into the focal characters.
It was all about Jessica and Roman. The workaholic and preoccupied wife and the devious and violent ex-convict brother. It was about the lies we tell the people we love and the world as well the lies we tell ourselves or let ourselves believe in times of sorrow and loneliness. The beautiful but disturbing union of two sympathetic but not necessarily unblemished characters, and the hatred and love and fear and lust and need that blazed between them. It was all about second chances and being given the chance and allowing yourself the chance to appreciate love and to strive to become the kind of person you feel deserves to be loved.