Possessor (2020)

Tasya Vos appears to have a normal life with an adorable son and an ex-husband who still loves her. In reality, she is a highly paid assassin with access to advanced technology that can insert her mind into another's and overtake it to kill her target. Over time, this practice has changed her mind, causing her to have intrusive violent thoughts in her own body and lose control over the host mind. Her latest job has her eventually trapped in a man's mind, unable to return to her own body.

I had no expectation going in beyond the eerie and beautiful imagery shown in the trailer and Possessor blew me away. The world building is immersive and different than many other science fiction films. Besides the tech industry and the secret assassin organization, the world feels the same as the present. Both companies we see feel like stepping into another world compared to Tasya's mundane, familiar home life. The visual style is so dreamlike, abstract, and colorful. The controversial sex scene with Tasya in a man's body and his girlfriend visually conveys gender dysphoria in a way I haven't seen before. 

Tasya is an exceptional assassin that shows a perfect façade to the world. It's as beautiful as it is fake, shown by her practicing mundane phrases to sound suitably interested and normal to her family. She carries this same practice into her job, learning how her future hosts speak to the people around them, their inflections and tone, to keep living their lives undetected until she kills. Her sense of self unravels while her mundane life seems to feel empty, only holding her back.

Only two of her assassinations are shown, but they are memorable. The first has her living in the body of a Black woman, brutally stabbing her target to death (not according to plan), and being killed by police. This sci-fi blackface and portraying death so like those we see in the news frequently is a poor choice especially when the scene is only used for attention-getting shock value and no other deeper commentary. This is my only real problem with the film. 

The second assassination is even more brutal as the mediocre white man she inhabits is fighting her control over him and making the target (his girlfriend's admittedly horrible dad) suffer as much as possible on top of killing his girlfriend. While this reflects intimate partner violence that happens frequently, these characters and their story are the focus of a good section of the film. The deep rage over feeling inferior to his girlfriend and her wealthy father was enough to overtake Tasya's control to destroy them. It says volumes about toxic masculinity and misogyny.

Possessor takes a futuristic concept and jumps right in. The rituals and regulations around the assassination method feels well developed, like we're only seeing a piece of a greater whole. I was hooked on each twist and turn of the film and the ending truly surprised me. Possessor is a huge step forward from Antiviral (despite the flaw) and I look forward to more films from Brandon Cronenberg. 

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins