For a Mysterious Corporation, Your Mind is Their Business

Jennifer Jason Leigh (left) and Andrea 
Riseborough in "Possessor" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Although director David Cronenberg has made some heavy dramas, like “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises,” and “Cosmopolis,” what he’s most known for is his movies that focus on body horror.  With movies like “The Fly,” “Videodrome,” and “Scanners,” he has created movies that pack an intense punch when it comes to his characters undergoing terrifying transformations.  Even his straightforward dramas have touches of body horror in them, given how bloody they can become.

Now, David’s son, Brandon, continues to follow in his father’s footsteps with his second directorial feature, “Possessor,” where he ventures further his own descent into the twisted, sci-fi body-horror for which his father has become so well known.

Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) works for a company that utilizes brain-implant technology to inhabit the bodies of other people and use them to carry out assassinations for the company’s benefit.  When her latest task involves entering the mind of a man named Colin Tate (Christopher  Abbott), the mission, and Tasya, will soon be in jeopardy when Colin’s mind threatens to overtake her own.

Riseborough’s performance is one in which her character shows a compelling display of someone who seems to be in command of her missions, but may be falling victim to her targets.  Although Riseborough isn’t seen much after the first third of the movie once her character inhabits Colin’s body, what we see before is small details of someone who has faced the physical and psychological toll of her profession.  It’s a quiet performance that says a lot of what Tasya has experienced in her line of work.

Just like Riseborough’s work in the movie, Abbott also presents someone who is soon overcome with the dangerous results of the transplant.  It gets to the point where you’re not sure who’s in control of his body, him or Tasya, and this is because he puts on a convincing portrayal of Tasya trying to get used to controlling his body.  Abbott ratchets up the intensity as the film goes on and he starts to fight for his mind, and this offers an intriguing fracturing of his character’s psyche is that keeps the story tightly wound as you watch Colin try to maintain a grasp on his life.  It’s a fascinating dual performance in a sense that we see Abbott play his character, and then act as if someone else is controlling him.  

Jennifer Jason Leigh, who had a starring role in David Cronenberg’s “Existenz,” does much with her supporting role as Tasya’s boss, Girder.  Leigh gives her character a cold, do-what’s-best-for-the-company attitude that’s chilling in how laid back her character seems, despite the danger that these missions can pose for her agents.  She presents Girder in such a way that it always seems like she’s keeping something from us, and this helps make her interactions with Tasya all the more unsettling.

Gabrielle Graham, who only appears in the opening scene, provides a near-wordless performance as a woman whose body Tasya controls on an assignment.  Through just Graham’s facial expressions, she does terrific work in providing an introduction of what it’s like to have a character in this world be controlled by another, and this helps to establish the intensity that you feel throughout the rest of the movie.

Cronenberg’s screenplay takes a relatively simple premise and injects it with something deeper, just as his father does with his sci-fi narratives.  This is one of those stories where we think we might have it figured out, but when we arrive to the final half hour and begin questioning what’s happening, we see that Brandon has the potential to confound and surprise his audiences as much as his father can.  And, once you reach the end, you’ll have to reevaluate what you thought you knew about the main character as you replay scenes in your head and contemplate them from a new angle.

Cronenberg, who made his feature directorial debut in 2012 for the horror film, “Antiviral,” has picked up some of his father’s filmmaking potential to delver a sci-fi horror-thriller that’s both visceral and suspenseful.  Right from the opening scene, he makes us well aware that we’re in for a shocking experience.  He’s able to build a lot of apprehension as we wait for the dam to break in terms of the controlled individuals taking out their targets, and just like his father, Brandon is able to make us squirm at the results of such sequences.  He’s not only able to make us recoil at some of the events, but he’s also capable of constructing a disorienting atmosphere that becomes even more so as he brings us further into the complexities that arise between the melding, and eventual battle of two minds.

Given the intelligence and shocks within “Possessor,” it’s clear that cinema now has two Cronenbergs on whom it can count to provide their signature twisted and thought-provoking stories to the sci-fi and horror genres.

Grade: A