Possessor (film)

Possessor is a 2020 science fiction horror film[2] written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg. An international co-production of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, the film stars Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Possessor
Film poster
Directed byBrandon Cronenberg
Produced by
Written byBrandon Cronenberg
Starring
Music byJim Williams
CinematographyKarim Hussain
Edited byMatthew Hannam
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release date
  • January 25, 2020 (2020-01-25) (Sundance)
Running time
104 minutes[1]
Country
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Canada
LanguageEnglish

It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2020. The film has been critically acclaimed, particularly for its originality and the performances from Riseborough, Abbott, Leigh, and Graham.

Plot

Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is a corporate agent who uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, driving them to commit assassinations for the benefit of the company she works for. The film opens with a young woman, Holly (Gabrielle Graham), plugging a device into her skull and then joining a group of women going to a dinner party. She takes a knife and stabs a man in the neck and then in the torso repeatedly. She then takes a gun from her bag and attempts to shoot herself in the head, but struggles to do so. When the police arrive she aims the gun at them and gets shot to death. Tasya wakes up in a control room, with a device removed from her head. She takes a test conducted by Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), which includes her looking at artifacts from her past and answering questions about them. When talking to Girder about taking a break to be with her husband Michael (Rossif Sutherland), Girder replies that they are separated. Girder also seems to worry about Tasya's well-being, but Tasya insists she is fine. Girder tells Tasya that she is not safe for her family.

Tasya goes to visit Michael and their son Ira but before she enters the house, she practices her behavior. That evening, she and Michael have sex during which Tasya sees images of the earlier assassination. She calls Girder and asks to work on the next assignment. When Michael asks her to move in again, she sees him with the same wound she inflicted earlier. Back at work, Girder reveals she will soon stop using the machine herself, as it puts a mental strain on her. She suggests that Tasya will be her follow up, which Tasya accepts. Girder is worried that Tasya is breaking and shows her pictures from the assassination and asks why she used a knife instead of the gun they provided. She then introduces Tasya to her new assignment: she will inhabit the body of Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott), who is to kill his girlfriend Ava (Tuppence Middleton) and her father John Parse (Sean Bean), the owner of a large company, and then himself. Tasya spies on Colin and Ava, trying to learn his dialect and mannerisms. Colin gets abducted and the brain implant is inserted into his skull. Tasya goes into the machine and inhabits Colin's body and wakes up in his apartment as him. He goes to work at Ava's father company, where he observes people's lives through their webcams and reports on them. Tasya soon experiences an intense episode where Colin seems to become aware of Tasya's control. When he comes home, Ava has several guests, including Reeta with whom Colin is having an affair. Later that night when Ava and Colin have sex, Tasya suffers another episode.

The next day at a lavish dinner party at John Parse's mansion, John makes condescending remarks against Colin. Girder tells Tasya to provoke John and act intoxicated. When he does so and gets rebuked again, he punches John and gets thrown out of the party. After the party is over, he sneaks back into the mansion and, although Tasya was equipped with a gun, strikes John with a fire poker repeatedly. He brutally mutilates his face and pokes out one of his eyes. When Ava comes into the kitchen and witnesses this, Colin shoots her. She manages to crawl away but gets shot in the head by Colin. Tasya once again struggles to kill Colin and suffers another episode, during which Colin manages to take control and stab the brain implant with a shard of glass. Back at the control room, Tasya begins suffering from a seizure. A doctor tells Girder that Colin and Tasya seem to fight over the control of his body and that keeping her in the machine could kill her, but Girder insists she finishes the job.

Colin flees and when Girder calls him on his phone and asks for Tasya, she gets no response. Colin goes to Reeta's apartment and, disoriented, asks if he can stay there. Tasya regains control and shoots Reeta while she showers. A co-worker of Colin's, Eddie, who is revealed to work for the same company, arrives at the apartment, knocks out Colin and starts to recalibrate the brain implant so Tasya can regain full control. During this, Tasya has intense visions of a disfigured John and Colin taking her face off and wearing it like a mask, living her life through various situations. When Colin awakens, he finds Eddie shot dead. He suffers a breakdown after Tasya once again fails to shoot him and regains control to walk to Michael's home, which he repeatedly saw in visions earlier. He forces himself into the home to seek revenge and points a gun at Michael while he sees a vision of Tasya who tries to talk him out of it, claiming that everything that happened was his doing and that he is in control. Michael manages to fight back, get the gun and shoot Colin but he takes a butcher knife, cuts off his hand and repeatedly stabs him to death. Once again struggling to kill himself, he gets stabbed in the neck with a knife by Ira, who in turn is shot to death by a dying Colin.

Tasya awakens in the control room and it is revealed that Girder controlled Ira to kill Colin. Tasya takes the test again and passes it.

Cast

Production

In May 2018, it was announced Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott had joined the cast of the film, with Brandon Cronenberg directing from a screenplay he wrote. Fraser Ash, Niv Fichman, Kevin Krikst, and Andrew Starke will produce the film under their Rhombus Media and Rook Films banners. Telefilm Canada will produce the film, while Elevation Pictures will distribute in Canada.[3] In February 2019, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stacy Martin and Sean Bean joined the cast of the film.[4] In May 2019, Tuppence Middleton joined the cast of the film.[5]

Filming

Principal photography began on April 9, 2019.[6]

Release

On November 2018, Well Go USA Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film.[7] The film later had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2020.[1][8] Shortly after, Neon acquired distribution rights to the film, with Well Go USA only handling the film's home media release.[9]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Possessor holds an approval rating of 93%, based on 27 reviews, and an average rating of 7.94/10.[10] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[11]

The film's opening sequence was singled out for praise, particularly Gabrielle Graham's performance as Holly in the sequence. David Ehrlich from IndieWire called it "a coldly compelling prologue"; and Wendy Ide from Screen Daily agreed: "In a memorable cameo role in the film’s opening, Gabrielle Graham also makes an impact."[12][13]

Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting gave the film a score of four-and-a-half out of five, writing: "Like dad David Cronenberg, Brandon Cronenberg has a unique way of testing the boundaries of comfort and exploring the human mind and body in squeamish fashion."[14] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's direction, visuals, as well as its performances, and special effects.[2] Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects gave the film a positive review, writing: "While Possessor retains his family's love of body horror and morally misused electronics it also manages an engrossing pace, engaging characters, unrelentingly brutal violence, erect penises, a must-own Halloween mask, a mean-spirited Sean Bean, one hell of an ending, and more [...] All of it, though, is fantastically and cruelly unforgettable."[15] Chris Evangelista of Slashfilm gave the film ten out of ten, writing: "Bathed in blood and gore, and unrelentingly aggressive, Brandon Cronenberg‘s Possessor is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It is a singular work – one so ghastly, so unique, and so brutal that it will awe some and disgust others."[16]

JoBlo.com's Chris Bumbray gave the film a score of eight out of ten, stating that the film "recalls many of his father David Cronenberg's previous works", Bunbray further praised Abbott and Riseborough's performances, as well as similar praise towards the film's visual style.[17] David Ehrlich from IndieWire also gave the film a grade of "B-", praising Cronenberg's direction as well as the film's cinematography, visuals, and performances, while also stating it did not fully realize its potential.[12]

gollark: Yes, but we're from a utopian future where we have palette capability.
gollark: We have palettes now anyway.
gollark: It would probably break things.
gollark: Coloring them *in the font* would be bizarre.
gollark: On the other hand that's *probably* for the best, considering how annoying some implementations of stuff would be.

References
  1. "Possessor". Sundance.org. Sundance Institute. Archived from the original on January 27, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  2. DeFore, John. "'Possessor' Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 5, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  3. Wiseman, Andreas (May 13, 2018). "Andrea Riseborough & Christopher Abbott To Star In Brandon Cronenberg Thriller 'Possessor'". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on September 7, 2018. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  4. Ritman, Alex (February 10, 2019). "Berlin: Sean Bean, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stacy Martin Board Sci-Fi Thriller 'Possessor'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 10, 2019. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  5. Ritman, Alex (May 16, 2019). "Cannes First Look: Christopher Abbot in Brandon Cronenberg's Sci-Fi Thriller 'Possessor' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on May 16, 2019. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  6. "Possessor". Production List. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  7. Wiseman, Andreas (November 2, 2018). "Well Go USA Pre-Buys Andrea Riseborough-Christopher Abbot Sci-Fi 'Possessor' — AFM". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  8. Siegel, Tatiana (December 4, 2019). "Sundance Unveils Female-Powered Lineup Featuring Taylor Swift, Gloria Steinem, Abortion Road Trip Drama". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on December 8, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  9. D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 27, 2020). "Brandon Cronenberg Sci-Fi Thriller 'Possessor' Acquired By Neon". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
  10. "Possessor (2020) – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on May 2, 2020. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  11. "Possessor reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  12. Ehrlich, David (January 26, 2020). "'Possessor' Review: Brandon Cronenberg's Gory Techno-Thriller Gets Under Your Skin". IndieWire. Archived from the original on May 2, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  13. Ide, Wendy (January 26, 2020). "'Possessor': Sundance Review". Screen. Archived from the original on January 26, 2020. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  14. Navarro, Meagan. "[Sundance Review] Brandon Cronenberg's Heady Sci-Fi Film 'Possessor' Brings the Gore". Bloody Disgusting. Archived from the original on February 5, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  15. Hunter, Rob (January 31, 2020). "Holy Hell, 'Possessor'". Film School Rejects. Archived from the original on February 1, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  16. Evangelista, Chris. "'Possessor' Review: Brandon Cronenberg's Ultra-Violent Thriller is Unlike Anything You've Ever Seen Before [Sundance 2020]". Slashfilm. Archived from the original on January 27, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
  17. Bumbray, Chris (January 31, 2020). "Review: Possessor (Sundance 2020)". Joblo.com. Archived from the original on February 5, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
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