Possessor (2020)

I like David Cronenberg’s work, and I want to like his son Brandon’s as well. But there’s something about the younger Cronenberg that isn’t quite connecting with me. I watched Infinity Pool, Brandon’s third film, awhile back and thought: interesting ideas, interesting visuals, just… something doesn’t sit right. I get much the same vibe with Possessor. The movie oozes style, it has an atmosphere that demands deep things are being said. But when I listen for those deep things, I hear barely a whisper. This movie, it whispers to me: capitalism demands we deny our humanity in service of the corporation. And I whisper back: yes, and?

Possessor is a striking film, to be sure, with pacing and cinematography that put me in mind of movies like The Shining, Alien, or Blade Runner. It’s full of shots that really challenge traditional filmmaking, and they are static enough to give you plenty of time to absorb them, think about them. Cronenberg, for example, likes to place his subjects hard left or right on the screen, looking off the short side — with very little to balance on the right. It’s almost anti-composition, and intensely alienating. It’s like the movie is forcing you to not make eye contact.

But then this composition is used shot after shot. It starts to draw attention to itself. It starts daring you to explain why the movie looks this way. Well, the movie wants me to feel alienated. The characters feel alienated. They aren’t willing to look directly at what they are doing either. And that’s fine as far as it goes, but… maybe that’s all there is?

If you think back to The Shining, Kubrick likes to use long shots of empty hallways in the Overlook. Centered, symmetrical, they feel like pits you are falling into. All the emptiness in front is a bit unnerving; it makes me want to look behind the camera. These shots, composed to be perfectly balanced, perfectly stable, emphasize the solidity and impermanence of the Overlook and somehow end up so much more threatening. When I think about these shots, I can understand why they establish the mood; what they tell us about little Danny Torrance’s relationship to the hotel. I really struggle to find that connection with Possessor.

I also find myself disinclined to try, because Cronenberg’s narrative vision feels underdeveloped. We have an interesting science fiction concept: what if assassins could take over the bodies of people close to their targets? Murder for profit is already something that forces you to disassociate somewhat from what it is you are doing. But if you were actually in someone’s head… what would that do to you?

That’s a good question, but at this point you’re committed to a certain amount of world-building. We have a world where technology allows assassins the ability to possess people. It’s apparently one that requires a lot of infrastructure, because we see a street team kidnap Tate and prep him for Vos’s takeover, and that requires van and several people. Vos’s own prep requires at least a handler and a medical tech. It’s hard and there are lots of people involved, which says to me: people are going to know this is possible. This can’t be a perfect secret. So, then, why are there no defenses for this sort of thing? Narratively it would make more sense if Vos was psychic and unique; but this is what seems like an industrialized form of assassination that operates in a world entirely unaware that such things exist.

That’s a big thing. There are other, smaller things as well. After Vos takes over Tate’s body, Colin (as Colin) explains to his fiancé Ava that he’d flown back from a business trip late that night, and he might have to fly out again. Good cover story; but when we see him actually at work, he’s wearing what looks like a jumpsuit, wearing VR goggles, watching through people’s webcams to identify what kinds of curtains they have.

This does not feel like the kind of job where you need to fly out for business pretty often. This is Black Mirror, live-in-a-dormitory work. It’s not like Ava doesn’t know; the company is owned by Ava’s father John, who gave Colin the company a burger-flipper-quality job (and John doubts Colin can even do that). Why even give him a job?

Anyway, here in the real world, image recognition was good enough by 2020 this kind of work would have been automated.

I often forgive much lower-budget movies this kind of sloppiness, but that’s because those movies are often intended to be spectacle first, or just a fun ride, or something really goofy. This wears its art pretensions on its sleeve, so I expect it to do a little bit more of the work. It’s true our character is experiencing a psychic dissolution of the self so maybe we shouldn’t expect total coherence, but that dissolution of the self is predicated on the technology existing in a coherent universe. And I just don’t see one where people don’t know these techno-assassins exist or where burger-flippers have to fly places for travel. It’s sloppy world-building, and to say Something Really Deep in a science fiction story you need your fictional science to feel real. This just does not.

Published Thu Jan 29 2026 13:04:28 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)