Possession (2009)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Amateur movie with Big budget

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It is OK movie. Nothing special, viewing it as a whole, but it does grab your attention most of the time. The title of the movie may give you the impression that it is a horror movie, but it is a drama with elements of thriller. Sarah was very good in the movie. I don't know the names of the 'brothers' but for what they acted, it was good. The twist or the changing of the roles is clever, but then the blood connection makes no sense to me - that is, if the other brother consciously decided to switch the roles. I did not like the very ending with the hands of the 'spirit' helping her tie the chain... All in all, six from me.

Despite the good looking production values, "Possession" is really another take on a romance novel spiced up with some supernatural and thriller elements which both come straight off the assembly line. Ditsy beauty Sarah Michelle Gellar (playing Jessica) has the perfect marriage with Ryan (Michael Landes), but what she really wants is to have sex with bad boy Roman (Lee Pace). That's why Gellar looks scared and turned on at the same time when Roman is around. Then by the wildest of coincidences, two car accidents occur on what appears to be the scenic San Francisco Bridge. And you guessed it: Ryan conveniently stays in a coma, but bad boy Roman emerges from the coma and claims to be Jessica's husband. Now all Jessica had to really do was to point out the obvious to Roman: he does not look like Jessica's husband Ryan at all. But if that happened, then Jessica would never have the opportunity to have sex with Roman and the rest of the film would have been unnecessary. So Jessica convinces herself that Roman is possessed by the spirit of Ryan and has the best sex ever. Then comes the twist which shatters all of Jessica's delusions. At this point, Jessica must disavow Roman altogether or else admit that she really does like to have adultery. Then comes the predictable confrontation. Jessica re-establishes herself unconvincingly as the good girl who would never dream of having sex with a bad boy by telling Roman that she only slept with him because she thought he was someone else. Yeah sure!So if you are interested in romance novels with bad boys in them, you may like this film. But if you want a film which is not straight off the assembly line and has multi-layered, intelligent, and evolving characters who do and say interesting things in exciting situations, then give "Possession" a pass.

First, the fact that Jess was even remotely fooled by Roman's pretending to have woken from his coma with a paranormal body-switch as his brother Ryan is preposterous. He presumably created some false memories for himself by sorting through her mementos box, but does anyone believe that that would be enough for her to fall for his ruse? A married couple who were that much in love would have so much more familiarity with each other than just a few shared memories. Does anyone believe that Roman would really be able to fake the subtle nuances and chemistry that existed between Ryan and Jess? In order to completely transform himself from a cold, hard, woman-beating criminal bad-ass to the totally sensitive woman-whipped romantic that Ryan was, he would have to be the greatest actor in the world.And to top it off, he's able to concoct and execute this plan immediately after waking up from his coma, realizing that his brother is still in one, all in the less than one hour time frame it took for the doctors to call Jess in to the hospital. Any medical person familiar with comas knows that when someone is out for that long - 3 weeks according the movie - it may take him a day or more just to remember his own name! Second, what was all those scenes regarding the mixing of the blood on the concrete at the scene of the crash and the paranormal stuff where Ryan in his coma was continually spasming in connection with the events Roman was going through? Considering that it turns out that Roman was just faking it, those scenes made absolutely no sense.I give it three out of ten just because some of the technical aspects of the movie, the lighting, overall coloring and feel, and soundtrack were at least professionally done. And the acting was not bad considering the horrible plot. Sarah Michelle Gellar was pretty good at least during the part when she was rejecting Roman and his ridiculous plot.

Possession is one of the best films in actress Sarah Michelle Gellar's filmography...something which does not represent too much flattery.As I have mentioned in other occasions, I was a huge fan of the TV series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, and I think that Gellar brought a brilliant performance in there.However, most of the films Gellar has been involved in are bad, and she was absolutely wasted in many of them.However, Possession kept me entertained, despite the facts that is not very memorable and that it feels a bit bland.The story from Possession is not very original; nevertheless, I liked the performances, the atmosphere and the methodic path the screenplay takes until leading to the "tense" ending, which is not very tense by itself, but which seems so thanks to the solid works from Gellar and Lee Pace.In conclusion, I think Possession deserves a moderate recommendation, mainly because of the performances, Joel Bergvall's and Simon Sanquist's efficient direction, and the screenplay, which does not offer too many new things, but at least is well structured.In other words, Possession is competent, but it lacks of something special to make it memorable.