By Robert Scucci | Published 9 seconds ago When I saw 2010’s Inception in theaters, I wanted so badly to like it but felt like it was trying to be complex for complexity’s sake. I spent my time tracking totems and watching the story unfold, but left the theater unsatisfied for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t until I sat down with Brandon Cronenberg’s 2020 mind-scrambling masterpiece, Possessor, that I realized where the film that seems to have indirectly inspired it fell short. Possessor is a grotesque, high-concept psychological thriller that tackles the same themes of mind manipulation and corporate espionage as Inception, but with one crucial distinction: it doesn’t patronize the audience. Instead, it forces the perceptual bends on us and trusts we’ll piece them together ourselves. Assassination By Proxy Kicking off in a way that’s eerily similar to Inception , Possessor introduces Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough), a skilled assassin who takes out her marks by possessing someone close to them through a brain implant that lets her control their body. When the hit is complete, she’s supposed to turn the gun on herself to free her consciousness from the host and wake back up at headquarters where her real body is being monitored. When she can’t follow through with that suicide trigger and nearly botches the mission, her handler, Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), assesses her and determines that Tasya’s attachment to her family is holding her back. Tasya, who’s been on missions far more than she’s been home, struggles to distinguish her personal life from her professional one. Before visiting her husband Michael (Rossif Sutherland) and son Ira (Gage Graham-Arbuthnot), she rehearses her own verbal and physical tics just to blend in, the same way she does before every new assignment. Tasya is no longer herself but an empty vessel, fine-tuned to become whoever she needs to possess next. An Effortlessly Complicated Psychological Break Tasked with assassinating CEO John Parse (Sean Bean) and his daughter Ava (Tuppence Middleton), Tasya takes on the identity of Colin (Christopher Abbott), Ava’s fiancé, but can’t fully assimilate. Her control slips, fracturing both Colin’s reality and her own. Tasya knows the mission is falling apart but pushes forward anyway. Like the opening job, she can’t pull the trigger on herself, allowing Colin’s consciousness to fight back. Colin becomes dimly aware that he’s not entirely in control, losing track of time and waking up surrounded by the violence Tasya commits while inside his body. As the two identities battle for dominance, Tasya unravels within Colin’s psyche while Colin becomes increasingly terrified by what’s happening to him. Carrying The Cronenberg Torch GFR SCORE Following in his father’s footsteps while carving his own path, Brandon Cronenberg accomplishes with Possessor what Christopher Nolan couldn’t with Inception. Aside from the film’s initial setup, we’re spared from heavy-handed exposition or long stretches of rule explaining. The audience gets just enough information to stay grounded, then it’s on us to decipher who’s who through Tasya’s subtle verbal slips and body language; the small cues that convey how deeply she’s lost herself in her work. As the body count climbs, and it does brutally, the line between reality and possession disintegrates. The puzzle unfolds naturally without a character spoon-feeding the logic behind every twist. We’re not inside a dream within a dream within a dream. We’re trapped in an existential nightmare with no clear escape route. The real thrill, and horror, is in trying to figure out where Tasya’s consciousness ends and her proxy’s begins. The more her control slips, the less sense of safety the premise allows, and the more it demands from the viewer to find their own way out. Tense, grotesque, and unapologetically violent, Possessor is everything Inception wanted to be and more once you realize what’s truly at stake. If you think you have the stomach for it, you can stream it for free on Tubi as of this writing. Related Topics: Source: https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/scifi/possessor-movie-review.html