Pull me out
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Movies of 2020...
#33 : Possessor
This sci-fi thriller from Brandon Cronenberg is just as creepy as his father David’s work. It stars Andrea Riseborough as a future assassin who invades hapless victims’ minds and uses them to assassinate targets.
One I'd heard of at least, and I'd also heard that son-of-David's film making style didn't fall far from the tree, so I was expecting a stylish horror/sci-fi with either a fully formed plot which works well or a paper-thin concept which barely hangs together.
And it certainly has an arresting beginning - if I didn't have some concept of the plot, I'd have been like "woah!". It's definitely an interesting concept - although I was intrigued to see whether there was more to the film than just an interesting concept. And there both is and there isn't - it's an interesting concept to invade someone's mind to use them for your own ends, but it's also an interesting concept as to how you cope with being that person in order to achieve your aim. There is a bit more story tacked on at the end of the film and a very minor plot twist at the end, but I’d be lying if I said I felt it was a fully fleshed out plot. And that's all I can tell you really...
Brandon certainly has inherited his father's eye for the visual - there are some great scenes and shots in this film. The lighting, sound and effects generally work well - although there’s also a really crap mask in it which is very jarring compared with some of the other more impressive effects. I would say there are quite a few cases where you feel he's doing things because he can rather than because it's needed for the film in any way - I think it's fair to say that a lot of what we see does not drive the plot along at breakneck speed. Additionally, I should warn you that, also following in his father’s footsteps, there are some really unpleasant scenes in this film - one of them even made me go “ewwww”, which is rare. He also REALLY likes blood.
Unfortunately, as with the previous film, a lot of it makes ABSOLUTELY no sense at all - I had to resort to Wikipedia and IMDB to explain a lot of what was going on and in quite a few places they came up short. There's also one point where one of the characters has the job of describing curtains, sometimes when people are having sex in the room at the same time - obviously! I also really struggled to care about any of characters - I realise they’re written that way but they’re really not a likeable bunch.
Andrea Riseborough does an excellent job - detached and other-worldly, as is required for her role. Although given that she spends a lot of time being other people, we don't see as much of her as you might expect/hope for. Christopher Abbott, who plays the person invaded by her for most of the film, is fine I guess but seeing as how he’s having to play someone who’s very confused a lot of the time (or just randomly killing people), it’s not the best part for showing off his acting abilities. Sean Bean is amusingly Sean Bean in the film though - he’s always good value.
So, do one or two interesting concepts, bucketloads of style, a cast of unlikeable characters and a couple of unpleasant scenes make this a good film? Not really - I wouldn't say it's a terrible film but it feels more like a film school case study rather than than a good film and I'd have to say amazingly little happens in just over 100 minutes. One for the critics rather than audience, I'm afraid.
At the time of writing, Possessor is available to rent from most of the usual places but I can't for the live of me imagine who would bother doing so.
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