Possession

...

Rating 1 (2 on second viewing)


Directed by Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist

Written by Michael Petroni, based on the film‘Addicted’, written by Byun Won-mi

Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar (Jessica), Lee Pace (Roman), Michael Landes (Ryan), Tuva Novotny (Casey), Chelah Horsdal (Miranda), Dhirendra (Dr Rajan) and William B Davis (Hypnotist)


Jessica and Ryan are happily married, although Jessica is not as attentive to the marriage as her husband. His troubled younger brother Roman, who has recently been released from prison following a six month conviction for aggravated assault, is temporarily living with them, an arrangement that Jessica finds increasingly difficult. Following a freak automobile accident that leaves both Ryan and Roman in a coma, Roman awakes, now claiming to believe that he is Ryan, leaving Jessica to try to come to terms with her own feelings of guilt and loss.

...


‘Possession’ is an American remake of a 2002 South Korean film called ‘Addicted’ (or ‘Jungdok’). The film was first announced in 2006 and originally set for release in February 2008, but when the production company Yari Film Group experienced financial problems it resulted in a number of delays, until finally it was released direct to DVD in March 2010.

The film is a melancholy psychological thriller with supernatural overtones that follows a similar pattern to previous Sarah Michelle Gellar films ‘The Grudge’ and ‘The Return’. However, unlike those two films, it just does not work. There is little suspense or foreboding and there does not appear to be much obvious on-screen chemistry between Gellar and Lee Pace, both of whom are competent actors who give uninvolving performances here. The film is rather threadbare and somewhat botched and quite simply fails in almost every aspect.

I consider myself to be a fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s work and although the last film in which she took a starring role that made any appreciably commercial impact was ‘The Grudge’ in 2004, I think she has made some very worthwhile films since that time, even if she seems not to attract much critical support for her choices. However, ‘Possession’ is very poor, much like ‘Suburban Girl’ in 2007, another rare Gellar film that was, I concluded, somewhat less than inspiring.

Additional: Having watched the film for a second time, some of my previous criticisms no longer apply. It is, I have decided, not as bad as my initial impression of it suggested and both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace give better performances than I had at first concluded. However, I do feel that the film fails to fire on all cylinders - it seems largely stuck in second gear and rarely gets any further than third. Perhaps my biggest criticism is that the portrayal of Ryan’s undying love for Jessica in the opening scenes comes across not so much as romantic and inspiring, but overly sentimental and even a little creepy.

Original review posted 7 March 2010 - additional comments added on 10 March 2010


...

The Messengers

…

Rating 3


Directed by Danny Pang and Oxide Pang Chun : Written by Mark Wheaton, based on a story by Todd Farmer : Starring Kristen Stewart, Penelope Ann Miller, Dylan McDermott, John Corbett, William B Davis, Dustin Milligan, Evan Turner, Theodore Turner, Tatiana Maslany and Jodelle Ferland


Roy Solomon (Dylan McDermott) takes his family from Chicago to live on a remote and dilapidated farm in North Dakota where he plans to make a fresh start and cultivate a crop of sunflowers. Roy cannot afford to pay for farm labour, but offers Burwell (John Corbett), a passing stranger, food and lodgings and a small cut of the profits to work on the farm.

Jessica (Kristen Stewart) and her mother Denise (Penelope Ann Miller) are barely on speaking terms and tensions in the family worsen still when Jessica begins to display a barely concealed fear of the house and claims she and her young brother Ben (twins Evan and Theodore Turner) were attacked by apparently supernatural forces. Ben is mute and cannot corroborate her story. The deadly secrets contained in the old house seem to be inexorably linked to the crows that swoop around the fields that surround it.

The Pang brothers from Hong Kong are famous for the acclaimed 2002 film ‘Gin gwai’ (‘The Eye’) and its two sequels. ‘The Messengers’ contains several examples of the distinctive visual imagery common in J-horror films, but it is not in that league.

It is decidedly derivative, adding nothing new to the haunted house genre. Some muddle in the detail suggests editing after the fact, but it also has much to commend it for fans of genre, which I would count myself amongst. However, it is no better than ‘The Return’, the critically mauled Sarah Michelle Gellar film that followed a vaguely similar narrative.

17-year-old Kristen Stewart has been mentioned as an actress to look out for in the future and her performance is perfectly fine. Her portrayal of the sullen teenager is believable, but she is not especially noteworthy in this particular role, apart from being wafer-thin, even by current Hollywood standards. She is perhaps best known for her roles in ‘Panic Room’ and the Oscar-nominated Sean Penn film ‘Into The Wild’.

Stewart does fare better than Penelope Ann Miller and Dylan McDermott, whose roles give them little to work with. It was nice to see John Corbett, who I have paid little attention to since his days in the television series ‘Northern Exposure’. William B Davis, a very distinctive actor celebrated for his role as the cigarette smoking man in ‘The X Files’, is wasted in a small role that initially offers much but goes nowhere.

‘The Messengers’ was produced by Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, which was also responsible for other cheap and cheerful haunted house films like ‘The Grudge’ and ‘Boogeyman’. It has an 11% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes, which is par for the course for this type of film, and grossed $55 million at the box office against a production budget of $16 million.



…