Movie review: The Possession
By Katherine Monk
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Natasha Calis, Kyra Sedgwick, Jay Brazeau, Madison Davenport
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
If you ever wondered why there?s no Kosher Jack in the Box, The Possession will put an end to that mystery ? and many others ? as it picks up the theme of satanic possession from the other side of the Judeo-Christian aisle.
Imagine The Exorcist with yarmulkes and ringlets and you get a very good idea of what awaits the viewer in this Vancouver-shot chiller.
Opening with a shot designed within an inch of over-kitsch, we see an older woman sitting in her panelled living room, walking past a plaque of souvenir spoons and a retro brass wall clock. She hears noises ? you know the standard ?haunting? effects that sound like air leaking from a tire fused with someone whispering in Russian.
Clearly, the woman is irritated by the racket because she walks over to an ominous wooden box on the mantel with a hammer in her hand. She wants to smash it, yet the minute she raises her arm to strike, an eyeball sinks into her head, her spine bends backwards and she?s slam-dunked headfirst into the glass coffee table.
It?s a good start to a predictable run of shock and gawk, but there?s really nothing new here at all except the focus on the Old Testament.
Supposedly based on a true story, The Possession features Beelzebub?s creepy body tricks performed by a whole new dog: a Dybbuk, a Jewish demon that can be contained in a specially designed and rather dangerous Dybbuk Box.
After our haltingly graphic introduction to the dark-grained box inscribed with Hebrew script, we see it sitting benignly in the sun among the musty entrails of the old lady?s house. There?s a yard sale going on, and the one person who takes a fancy to the menacing container is a young girl named Em (Natasha Calis).
Em?s father Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has no problem buying the box for his little girl, especially in light of the recent divorce that?s left his two young daughters straddling two homes ? as well as two father figures.
He wants to be the big man and the good guy, so he not only buys the box, he brings his girls home to his brand new house: A cedar-shingled box in an abandoned subdivision.
This is the second movie in so many weeks to feature the visual casualties of the economic crisis: brand new homes rotting in the mud and dust of abandoned developments.
They are a fitting motif for a world where the middle class has been swallowed whole by the monster of consumer debt and unemployment, and they provide the perfect backdrop for the latter-day resurgence of possession stories because they speak to a sense of emptiness within the soul.
Certainly, director Ole Bornedal is aware of these elements as he directs young Calis through two levels of drama: the drama of being a kid going through the divorce and romantic realignment of her parents, and the drama of a kid suddenly surging with demonic energies and creepy sleeping habits.
For the most part, everyone does exactly what they have to do ? which is look surprised, horrified or absolutely terrified, depending on the moment.
When dad tells mom that young Em is acting strangely, mom (Kyra Sedgwick) blames him because he?s a jock and he can get violent. After all, they broke up for a reason.
It?s only after Clyde tries to throw away the box that his theory of demonic possession gets any traction with the rest of the world. In the meantime, he?s contacted the experts: The Hassidim, gatekeepers to the secrets of the Jewish faith, at least in this movie.
When Clyde enters the room carrying the box, everyone stares at him through their bifocals ? the way saloon drinkers stop slurping to drink in a stranger in a western.
They try to shoo him away but one younger man takes pity on poor Clyde when he pleads for help. Singing sensation Matisyahu, easily the hippest Hassid ever, plays Tzadok ? the fearless man of the cloth who decides to stand between the Dybbuk and the girl.
Will Tzadok be able to free Em from the curse?
You want I should ruin the movie?
The Possession does nothing remotely new, save for the rather impressive feat of making New Westminster, B.C., look like one of the five boroughs of New York.
The whole movie depends on how successfully we believe in the idea of a demon that lives in a box, and to accomplish that, Bornedal relies on the ordinary.
He steers away from Hollywood lighting and tries to go for an authentic, ambient look dependent on natural light. He fills every frame with mundane items hoping to make us believe we?re looking at our world, not some phoney imitation.
Yet, for all the great art direction and production design, the cloud of cliche drifts in halfway through the film and gives everything an almost comic edge as the characters zombie dance through the denouement.
They have no choice. They have to go through the tortured motions because they, too, are possessed. Not by a demon, but an obvious desire for work.
08/31/12 07:35 2012
Source: http://o.canada.com/2012/08/31/movie-review-the-possession/
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