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Possessor, 2020
Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is an assassin working for a secret organization who uses technology to "possess" the bodies of other people in order to carry out killings. Vos struggles with her identity, which concerns her handler, Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Despite this, Vos goes undercover inside of a man named Colin (Christopher Abbott), on an assignment to kill Colin's girlfriend and the girlfriend's father before committing "suicide". But once inside Colin, Vos begins to experience disorienting emotions and thoughts.
The buzz on this film has been a rollercoaster--first some really positive things, then people saying it was just okay, then some more high praise. I wasn't sure how much I would like it and I was really pleasantly surprised.
The thing about the film that most works for me is simply the cohesion between the character arc and the way that it is communicated via the images on screen. The disorientation that Vos feels is well-realized and slowly ramps up in intensity and the degree of how disturbing it is. When Vos first lands inside of Colin, the film shows us Colin/Vos, disoriented in the bathroom and tentatively exploring his nude body. As Vos spends more time inside of Colin's body and mind, her personality exerts itself more directly, including during sex with Colin's girlfriend and behavior at Colin's workplace.
Riseborough , whose titular performance in Mandy really put her on my radar, is great as a woman struggling to know herself even as she constantly plunges into the minds and experiences of other people. And her performance is well-matched by Abbott as Colin. Abbott brings a certain confused vulnerability to the role, with the interesting twist that we do not know the nature of his character on his own. We only ever really see the Colin/Vos hybrid. As the film progresses, the question of which personality we are really seeing (more Colin, or more Vos) comes up constantly, and Abbott delivers an interesting and nuanced performance as a fusion of two different minds.
In pursuing body horror, Brandon Cronenberg inevitably draws comparison with his father's work. I found the very visceral horror of the film to be effective. The disorientation that Vos feels inside of Colin is both physical and psychological, and the film explores this in sequences that hit on both levels. The sequence from which the poster derives was particularly effective, in my opinion.
I didn't really have any complaints about the film. I think it would be interesting to revisit and see what I think of it a second time around. I was very taken by the performances and the theme in the center might be simple--someone struggling with relationships, literally destroying other people's relationships from the inside--but I thought it was powerful and well-executed.
Definitely not a film that everyone would like--not even horror fans--but it hit the right notes for me.
Possessor, 2020
Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is an assassin working for a secret organization who uses technology to "possess" the bodies of other people in order to carry out killings. Vos struggles with her identity, which concerns her handler, Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Despite this, Vos goes undercover inside of a man named Colin (Christopher Abbott), on an assignment to kill Colin's girlfriend and the girlfriend's father before committing "suicide". But once inside Colin, Vos begins to experience disorienting emotions and thoughts.
The buzz on this film has been a rollercoaster--first some really positive things, then people saying it was just okay, then some more high praise. I wasn't sure how much I would like it and I was really pleasantly surprised.
The thing about the film that most works for me is simply the cohesion between the character arc and the way that it is communicated via the images on screen. The disorientation that Vos feels is well-realized and slowly ramps up in intensity and the degree of how disturbing it is. When Vos first lands inside of Colin, the film shows us Colin/Vos, disoriented in the bathroom and tentatively exploring his nude body. As Vos spends more time inside of Colin's body and mind, her personality exerts itself more directly, including during sex with Colin's girlfriend and behavior at Colin's workplace.
Riseborough , whose titular performance in Mandy really put her on my radar, is great as a woman struggling to know herself even as she constantly plunges into the minds and experiences of other people. And her performance is well-matched by Abbott as Colin. Abbott brings a certain confused vulnerability to the role, with the interesting twist that we do not know the nature of his character on his own. We only ever really see the Colin/Vos hybrid. As the film progresses, the question of which personality we are really seeing (more Colin, or more Vos) comes up constantly, and Abbott delivers an interesting and nuanced performance as a fusion of two different minds.
In pursuing body horror, Brandon Cronenberg inevitably draws comparison with his father's work. I found the very visceral horror of the film to be effective. The disorientation that Vos feels inside of Colin is both physical and psychological, and the film explores this in sequences that hit on both levels. The sequence from which the poster derives was particularly effective, in my opinion.
I didn't really have any complaints about the film. I think it would be interesting to revisit and see what I think of it a second time around. I was very taken by the performances and the theme in the center might be simple--someone struggling with relationships, literally destroying other people's relationships from the inside--but I thought it was powerful and well-executed.
Definitely not a film that everyone would like--not even horror fans--but it hit the right notes for me.