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Author
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Comment
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swood
Unregistered User
(8/15/02 1:02:31 pm)
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Byatt's Possession opens this weekend 08/16/02
A reminder: the film adaptation of Byatt's _Possession_ is opening this weekend. I know she is a great favorite on the board.
Happy viewing!
Sarah
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swood
Unregistered User
(8/16/02 10:07:08 am)
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Reviews of Possession
Roger Ebert
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/movies/16POSS.html
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swood
Unregistered User
(8/16/02 10:09:52 am)
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Oops!
The other one didn't post:
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/movies/16POSS.html
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Gregor9
Registered User
(8/16/02 11:14:17 am)
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Reviews
The Philadelphia Inquirer's review of the film today was most unfavorable. I'll be curious to see how it fares among her fans here. It seems a difficult book to bring cinema in the first place, but I'm going to wait and see.
Greg
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Helen
Registered User
(8/16/02 10:02:49 pm)
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And I had such high hopes ...
Yeesh. I say again, yeesh.
I've been looking forward to this movie since first hearing of it, and I'm sad to say .. it's enormously disappointing, all the more so because you can *see* the potential shining through. The right cast is in there ... but they've all been placed in the wrong roles! The gentleman playing Roland ought to have been Fergus, the gentleman playing Fergus should have been the the horse-racing lawyer who wound up with Val, and the gentleman who played the lawyer should have been Roland ... and so on and so forth. (I won't say anything at all about the idea of Gwyneth Paltrow, who might possibly have made a passable Christabelle, playing Maude ... that way lies madness.) The plot has been surgically excised - no Val, no Leonora, no nothing. My own favorite aspect of the book lay in its accurate portrayal of the lures of academia, of what their subjects were; what remained alive when everything else had been taught to them (to paraphrase Ms. Byatt - I don't have the book on-hand, unfortunately). Maude and Roland don't have an immediate connection in the book; they discover their affinity in the course of their journey to learn about R.H.A. and LaMotte. In the movie, it's purely physical ...and that more or less says it all. It's a superficial treatment of a complex story ... Byatt deserves better. Maybe someone will redo it someday ... one can hope.
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swood
Unregistered User
(8/17/02 10:36:14 am)
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I liked it!
I enjoyed the movie, it was different from the book, but nevertheless satisfying.
Sarah
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Van45us
Registered User
(8/19/02 4:33:14 pm)
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I enjoyed it (SPOILERS!)
I can also see a lot more potential that is, no doubt, more realized in the novel, which I haven't read. I figure the book must be complex, as it has a readers guide published to go with it! I can see that the film had only so much time to tell the story, and the amount of condensing was probably large. Still, I liked it, in spite of some spots that didn't quite gel, like the believability of the "stormy" relationship between Paltrow and the American actor. Also, in spite of his good performance, the guy looked like he just stepped out of an Old Spice commercial. Another hunk with "issues." I was also expecting more of a contrast between the modern age and Victorian times, the difference in romantic communication, letter writing, and language in general. It was there (especially the language) but not pronounced. I did like the clever switching back and forth between the two time periods - nice job on that. Too, I thought there were some moments when they went to the seaside town that reminded me a little overmuch of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" right down to the hooded cloak she was wearing and the expression on her face! I'm sure it was deliberate, but not appearant to any who hadn't seen that movie. Also watch for the Pre-Raphaelite style paintings her lover composes.
Anyway, in spite of all this complaining, I thought it worked. Especially the last scene, where Asch comes across his daughter. If only the whole film had been on that level! It gave the movie the kick it needed. I'd give the film three stars out of five.
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