Possession

by Courtney Hilden
Spoiler Alert: The ending of the movie is given away in this review.

If you had been following the drama over the release of Possession, you might have gotten the idea that the movie was terrible, since no one wanted to release it, spending several years finished by unavailable, even though it stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace, both respected, though not overly-loved, actors. You’d be wrong.
The movie is about Jess, a newlywed, played by Gellar. Her husband, Ryan (Michael Landes), has a ne’er-do-well brother, Roman, played by Pace. Roman’s been in and out of jail, dresses like a punk, and abuses his girlfriend. While on parole and living at Jess and Ryan’s home, Roman suddenly leaves. Ryan chases after him, and the two get in a crash, dramatically enough on the Golden Gate Bridge, both falling into comas. When the body of Roman awakes, he claims instead to be Ryan. Jess is forced to consider that either her husband’s spirit is inside Roman or that Roman is playing her. Much of the drama, subtly but well-executed by Gellar and Pace, revolves around who really woke up.

To be fair, Possession doesn’t break much new ground until the end. It’s a stylish thriller a la Seven or Playing God. The cinematography is beautiful and smartly lets the lovely Northwest scenery do much of the work. The blues used in some scenes is well done, and it looks like an expensive, Duchovny and Anderson-less version of The X-Files.
Both Gellar and Pace give terrific performances. Given this and their other work, they really both deserve to be bigger stars. The movie was shot with two different endings, so both of them had to do more than just play one set of motivations: they had to play two.
The movie seductively allows the audience to fall in love with Pace’s character, who, up until the end, it is unclear if he is Roman or Ryan.
The ending is a well-won pay off. Roman turns out to be exactly who Jess fears he is, and he turns violent. Pace is better known for his lovable romantics, but is just as good at playing someone evil and manipulative. Jess’s creepy and deluded belief that her husband will wake up leaves the audience wondering if Jess was so easy to fool because her connection to reality was tedious at best.
There’s also that alternative ending that leaves us with more questions than answers. Jess decides that Roman really is lying and is not Ryan. She decides not to say anything, and goes about treating him as if he is her husband. We’re left to wonder what her motivations are. Does she love Roman? Is it really Roman if he’s pretending to be Ryan? Does she believe he has changed into a “good” person, and is worthy of loving? Is she just desperate, even for someone that is lying to her? Is she afraid of him, since he has a violent past? The ambiguity is delightful. It is this that really makes the movie more than just a thriller: it makes it the sort of movie you think about well after you’ve watched it.