Who knew that beneath the facade of cool cynicism that is Neil LaBute -- or at least the Neil LaBute of his first two films, In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors -- beats the heart of a wild romantic?
Possession, which he directed and co-wrote with David Henry Hwang and Laura Jones, explores romantic desire in a devilishly clever screenplay based on A.S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning novel. What propels everything in this film is a rapturous sense of passion -- for language, for England and literature and, most of all, for romance.
This film is aimed with no apologies at mature adults. Put it this way: A guy gets into bed with Gwyneth Paltrow, and his first impulse is to read poetry. We're in Merchant Ivory territory with a touch of Tom Stoppard's witty play Arcadia, in which academic pursuits have emotional appeal. If marketed well by Focus Features, the film, despite succumbing to melodramatic excess, could become an art house hit.
Possession takes place in parallel time periods -- present day and the Victorian era. The surprise is that it's the moderns who are emotionally stunted, not the Victorians. Our two moderns are Roland (Aaron Eckhart), an American on a fellowship in London to study the great Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, and Maud (Paltrow), an authority on Victorian poet Christabel LaMotte, who is her ancestor.
They meet professionally after Roland discovers two previously unknown drafts of letters by Ash that suggest a romantic liaison between him and LaMotte. Maud is too polite to laugh. Nevertheless, she does point out the unlikelihood of any relationship between Ash, known for poems dedicated to his beloved wife, and LaMotte, a feminist and lesbian.
As the literary detective work evolves, the movie transports us back into the lives of the two poets. Dashing Jeremy Northam is robust and coolly casual as Ash. The lovely Jennifer Ehle gives an exquisite portrait of a lady experiencing a new kind of passion, while the darkly beautiful Lena Headey, as Christabel's lover, Blanche, also experiences something new but deeply disturbing -- sexual jealousy.
The methodical work of true academic research gets left in the dust in this movie, where clues come more rapidly than in a murder mystery and the trail leads the researchers across England and even to France. What is marvelously fun -- and funny -- about this somewhat tongue-in-cheek portrait of the academicians is that they have less scruples than Cold War spies.
As romance blooms in parallel stories, the two couples' impulses are wildly different. The Victorians, whose foreplay is verbal rather than physical, respond to passions once they are declared. But the moderns, played with a nice balance between harmony and dissonance by Paltrow and Eckhart, initially stay aloof, fearing passion's flame and wary of its consequences.
In this film, LaBute indulges in a love for all things British from its dusty chambers and prestigious museums to cheerful London streets and rural splendors. Only foreigners -- the American director and his French cinematographer, Jean Yves Escoffier -- would lovingly transform Britain into a place so lushly romantic. Two Merchant Ivory veterans, designer Luciana Arrighi and costumer Jenny Beavan, are on hand to make certain the look of both periods has dramatic resonance.
The film goes over the top near the end with midnight grave-robbing and fights between academics. LaBute also has a tendency to hit his dramatic notes too hard, as if fearful audiences won't get the point. But these drawbacks are small compared to an otherwise witty, literate and mesmerizing bit of romantic escapism.