Glossy romance with pretty people.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 27, 2010

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 2, 2003

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 10, 2003

The irony is that LaBute (revising a screenplay by Laura Jones) has added syrup to the romances and drained out the danger.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2002

Suffocated by its fussy script and uptight characters, this musty adaptation is all the more annoying since it's been packaged and sold back to us by Hollywood.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2002

For a movie that purports to be about the passions of love and language, Possession is remarkably prim.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2002

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.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2002

Possession, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2002

It may be faint praise, but praise nonetheless, to say that LaBute (and co-writers Laura Jones and David Henry Hwang) have done the best they can with A.S. Byatt's Booker-winning 1990 novel.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2002

LaBute's trademark bite is absent here -- his movie feels trivial next to the book that inspired it.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 16, 2002

It's potentially exciting material, but what we see onscreen is somewhat less than that.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 16, 2002

Straightforward and old-fashioned in the best possible senses of both those words, Possession is a movie that puts itself squarely in the service of the lovers who inhabit it.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2002

One of those movies adapted from a beloved novel whose fans can't believe it's been brought to the screen. They turn out to be right.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 16, 2002

A lush, genteel romance of the Merchant-Ivory school that qualifies as a guilty pleasure.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 16, 2002

Ultimately, the film never recovers from the clumsy cliché of the ugly American abroad, and the too-frosty exterior Ms. Paltrow employs to authenticate her British persona is another liability.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2002

Split between two periods -- modern-day England and the England of a century ago -- the movie has little time to breathe emotional life into either world.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Aug 16, 2002

Some books just aren't meant to be movies, and Possession is surely one of them.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 16, 2002

Catch your breath, kindred spirits: Possession is the most romantic movie to come our way since The English Patient.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 16, 2002

It's sexy to observe two couples who think and debate their connections, who quote poetry to each other, who consciously try to enhance their relationships by seeking metaphors and symbols they can attach to.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 16, 2002

If you're expecting Linda Blair's head to spin around at some point, you might want to skip it.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2002