Maud Bailey, a brilliant English academic, is researching the life and work of poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Michell is an American scholar in London to study Randolph Henry Ash, now best-known for a collection of poems dedicated to his wife. When Maud and Roland discover a cache of love letters that appear to be from Ash to La Motte, they follow a trail of clues across England, echoing the journey of the couple over a century earlier.
What's supposed to be a deep examination of the transcendence of love and art and poetry turns into another shallow film about how repressed the British are.
– Eric Brace,
Washington Post,
16 Aug 2002
rotten:
Just about everything in this dry bit of business seems limp, building toward a poorly staged scene in a graveyard, which could be just where this slumbering bit of folly will land.
– Robert Denerstein,
Denver Rocky Mountain News,
18 Aug 2002
rotten:
This is Neil LaBute trying to do Jane Austen, from tone to subject matter to casting. And he's just no good at it.
– Roger Moore,
Orlando Sentinel,
29 Aug 2002
fresh:
While the film probably won't leave you swooning, it is at least an earnest love letter to its transcendent source.
– Connie Ogle,
Miami Herald,
30 Aug 2002
rotten:
For a movie that purports to be about the passions of love and language, Possession is remarkably prim.