Right from the very first scene of Possessor, director Brandon Cronenberg wastes no time to tribute the gnarly beauty echoed by his family name; a grizzly murder. As a sophomore film from the son of a beloved horror filmmaker, it is a bold move to allude to legacy while in the process of developing a distinct cinematic voice. Fortunately, the remaining 94 mins of Possessor is just as nasty and stylish, but Cronenberg forges his own path through his fascinating conceptual sci-fi world, and enigmatic exploration of identity under a dystopian hellscape. It’s a mishmashed genre delight that knows amongst the blood, guts, and body disfigurement that the real horror comes from a dissolving sense of self.
Possessor’s unique setting — an alternate timeline 2008, which combines futuristic technology and analog sensibilities — creates a timelessness to its neon-dipped synth aesthetics, much to the likes of It Follows or Ghost in the Shell. There’s an off-kilter feel to the eccentric world: where everyone vapes and drives old cars and televisions occupy huge walls; a who-knows-when stage of late capitalism that’s a perfect backdrop for its themes of disillusionment through labor. The film follows Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough), a corporate assassin who uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies and assassinate her elite targets for the benefit of her company. Though highly skilled, the violence takes a toll on her life as she alienates herself from her loved ones and struggles to hold back violent flashbacks and impulses. She is assigned to her latest target, Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott), who’s about to marry into a powerful and rich family, the Parses (Tuppence Middleton and Sean Bean).
That premise and setting seems fit for any pulpy action science-fiction blockbuster from the 70s. The colorfully hypnotic visual work from cinematographer Karim Hussain, production designer Rubert Lazarus, as well as the gruesome prosthetics supervised by Daniel Martin definitely harkens back to a practical approach to shooting gone by — but Cronenberg instead treads art house sensibilities in telling a story about the existential dread of body-swapping. This is boosted by wonderful performances from Riseborough and Abbott, who manage to blur the lines between where Tasya starts and where Colin ends. Abbott in particular gets to shine, essentially playing dual-roles and allowing his two characters’ psyches transcend their body, their performances, and as a result, gender. This gender dichotomy is portrayed through sex, violence, and expression.
As enriching as that depiction of gender through body co-inhabitance is, Possessor further develops itself as the film explores the influence of corporation over the individual. For as elite and deadly Tasya’s job as a corporate assassin sounds, it is still at the end of the day, a job where she performs labor. Violent, bloody labor; labor that eats away at her own sanity, represented by flashes of horrifying yet technicolor imagery. She may be good at it, but it is degrading her humanity. Her work consumes her, detaches herself from her life, and her very own identity. She performs and destroys and performs and destroys until she is no longer human, but instead, a predator. Are we people, or are we tools for a higher power? Possessor not only raises that question, but literalizes it in its lo-fi, synth-scored dystopia.
These ideas do prove to be a bit more ambitious than the weight of the screenplay can handle at once. Possessor tends to lean towards powerful spectacle rather than full exploration of its premise and characters, which is not inherently a bad thing when the visuals are so ingrained to its themes and complex emotions. Still, it’s disappointing that a fresh take on dystopia doesn’t allow us enough time to see every facet of its decrepit setting and the society it represents. Jennifer Jason Leigh has a minor role in the film as Girder, a master of the tech Tasya uses. But, who she is and how she got there is largely ignored — an otherwise dour note on what could be a new age classic. As far as typical sophomore films go, however, this film still avoids being a slump — unlike other offerings from up and coming directorial voices. What is here is impactful, and coming from a genuine source of anxiety; the universal horror of how capitalism strips us all of our own empathy and humanity.
While it doesn’t succeed in realizing all of its potential, Possessor remains a wonderful and fresh attempt at a marriage between sci-fi, body horror, lo-fi aesthetics, and capitalistic disillusionment. Cronenberg successfully distinguishes his own voice from his family legacy whilst still paying tribute to the grotesque cinematic nature of his family name. Riseborough and Abbott give their characters amazing dimension and raise big questions of gender identity and performance. In the end, for as arresting as the blood, gore, and techno soundtrack of Possessor is, its unique and special quality is its acknowledgement that the feeling of detachment from your own body is much more under-the-skin horrifying than a mutilated corpse.
