REVIEW: POSSESSION - starring Sarah Michelle Gellar
Directors: Simon Sandquist, Joel Bergvall
Producers: Bob Yari, Nigel Sinclair
Screenplay: Michael Petroni
Adapted by Jae-yong Gwak from a screenplay by Won-mi Byun and Min-ho Song
Co-starring: Lee Pace, Michael Landes
US Release Date: 9 March 2010
Length: 85 minutes
Genre: Drama
Interesting Character Scale (Helen Shivers=0 Buffy Summers=10}: six
Best scene for Gellar: The final scene in the Alternate Ending.
This is an excellent film, but only if, when you get to the scene (about 49 minutes in) where Lee Pace's character wakes from a bad dream, you stop watching and immediately switch to the alternate ending provided in the Special Features Featurette section. Without the alternate ending, the film makes no sense; Gellar's character makes no sense; and one misses Gellar's best film scene in recent memory.
This was adapted from Jungdok, a Korean film (marketed in the US under the name "Addicted") which, from what I have read, certainly is more consistent with the alternate ending. Here's the premise: Gellar's character (Jessica) marries one of two brothers. She marries the "good" brother, although it is clear from the beginning that the "bad" bro and she have feelings for one another. As fate would have it, bad bro, who has decided that he is not welcome in house of good bro anymore, takes off in his somewhat dilapidated car. Jessica phones good bro and tells him this. He heads home immediately. In the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, the good and the bad collide.
Both drivers survive but in comas. When bad bro wakes up, he professes to have the memories of good bro, and to be in love with Jessica.
Most of the backstory must be inferred from a few clues in the dialogue and the emotions of the actors.
It is worth mentioning also that Casey (Tuva Novotny) looks a lot like Gellar's character, although the two are in no way related. She is, in the context of the story, the bad Jess.
Lee Pace gives a fairly effective performance here as bad bro. Gellar is just wonderful, especially if you take my advice about the ending. She made me wish the film was longer. The main problem with the film seems to be the editing. It seems a bit sloppy, and at times the film seems choppy and disjointed, an effect which I doubt was intentional. Most of that problem involves the unfortunate ending which somehow got attached to the main film on the DVD. Someone in the special features talks about the film and asserts that the question it asks is: How far will you go for love? The real question the film asks is: Can you teach an old dog new tricks?. (There is literally an old dog.) The answer to that question also depends on the ending you pick.
Below is a clip designed to give the flavor of the film without giving away too much.
NOTES:
I have to mention the DVD cover. It just looks too much like the cover of The Grudge DVD (same production company), which I didn't like much either.
Christy Bella Joiner is uncredtied as a nurse. She also is uncredited as a nurse in VERONICA DECIDES TO DIE, another Gellar film due out on DVD in August.
Jungdok, which translates into English as "Deep Sorrow", somehow got renamed "Addicted" for US release.