Possession (2008)

Thanks for all the well-wishes while I was away, guys! San Francisco was pretty excellent, as expected, but now that I've returned to hum-drum Boston weather and an ever-growing array of homework, I can come back to the most important activity: movies!

After finishing my midterms and some exhausting stop-motion animation set-building, it was time for a nice, possibly really stupid straight-to-DVD remake of a Korean ghost story featuring the best kind of eye candy, Lee Pace: Possession. Hard-working lawyer Jess (Sarah Michelle Gellar) knows she's lucky to be married to the incredibly attentive, doting, and good-natured Ryan (Michael Landes), but finds her time eaten up by her high-pressure job. Ryan's bad-boy, ex-con brother Roman (Lee "Hot Stuff" Pace) has been living with the couple for months but Jess is uneasy with his violent tendencies. Roman leaves in a huff after overhearing them talk about him, but soon enough he and his brother crash into each other's cars horrifically and wind up in comas.

Jess grieves for her husband but refuses to take him off life support, promising to be a "better wife" if he comes back, and when Roman wakes up she grudgingly takes him back into their home. He claims to actually be Ryan, spouting off memories of romantic vacations and whispered nothings. Jess is suspicious due to Roman's criminal past and the seeming impossibility of body-switching, but her deep-seated desire to have her husband back coupled with his good-intentioned persistence begin to push her into believing him.


Happening upon this during a routine Lee Pace imdb investigation (what? someone has to do it!), I had pretty low expectations, but I'm a bit desperate to see him act in anything new, and this seemed far more watchable than When In Rome. And honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by how decent this was. Possession boasts an interesting premise and apt cast that are hindered by muddled genre trappings. It is a really good mystery/romance story, with viewers often unsure if Ryan really is trapped in Roman's body or if it's all some kind of trick, but for some reason the directors chose to film it like a horror movie. There are tons of jump scares and creepy music cues, but it's not actually scary at all, and the overall movie suffers from this confused stylization and distractingly uneven tone.

Still, there's Lee Pace. There he is. He gets to show off his versatility in a dual performance: the snarling Roman is legitimately quite intimidating and scary (and prone to exposing his lovely arms), while when "possessed" by Ryan, he is completely transformed into a believably kind-hearted, compassionate romantic (admittedly, the collared shirts and sweaters helped too). All girly exhultations aside, I think it's an excellent and dynamic performance trapped in a so-so script. I have mixed feelings about Gellar, who's earned a lot of good will for Buffy but squanders it in lame movies. She does a good job here but is limited by the character, who spends too much time worrying about stereotypical wifehood and looking scared. I guess I just wanted her to roundhouse-kick something. Anything.

In the end Possession is an unexpectedly decent film, but nothing spectacular. The two leads are quite good and I dig the premise, but it must be said that without Lee Pace I would have almost no interest. I might check out the original, Jungdok, to see if it is similarly plagued by false notions of horror.

3/5

PS Coincidentally, this takes place in San Francisco, as evidenced by the poorly CGI-ed shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. This is one of many eerie similarities to the rom-com ghost movie Just Like Heaven, including the appearance of Rosalind Chao as a doctor in both films (though she's not credited for Possession, I'm like 90% sure it was her). Spoooky.