"I think great art comes from great passion. It's not about whether you are permitted to explore life, but rather whether you allow yourself to feel life," comments producer Paula Weinstein. "Neil has an enormous understanding and passion for the material: the struggle between men and women, be they Victorian or contemporary. Dialogues between the sexes, about who's in power, who's the boss, what does it mean to be sexual and to love - that's all Neil LaBute territory."
     Director and screenwriter LaBute came aboard the film as an avowed fan of the novel: "It was a lovely and smart book. I was curious as to who would try to make a movie version. When I had the chance to start working on it, I began to think about how to make it into a film. I worked on the script for a year and a half, first with [screenwriter] Laura Jones and then alone. It was very hard to find the right balance between the two sets of characters and the two worlds. Possession is about the discovery of tangible things - letters, the past - but also of things about oneself and of how the past can reflect itself upon the present. There are two sets of characters in two different relationships who find things in themselves that they did not think possible."
     LaBute describes his narrative as "a bit like emotional archaeology. The story's academics have never known of the relationship that took place between two revered poets. They discover that not only did Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte meet but in fact fell in love and ran away for a brief period. It's great for the audience because we can watch the academics come up with ideas about what they think the people have done and what their work meant, yet only the viewer walks away with the complete picture."
     Weinstein was delighted that LaBute was able to retain so many of the novel's central themes: "The Victorian and the contemporary love stories are quite different. Surprisingly, the Victorian love story is much more liberated, passionate and daring than the contemporary one, which is filled with all of our post-Freudian analytic angst."
     It is in the investigating of a mystery that the latter-day love story develops - "two letters found in a book are the catalyst for this story," explains LaBute. "In doing something as incredibly routine as opening up a book, something slips out that changes the personal and professional lives of a number of people. All that is known about the poets is that Ash was in a very stable marriage and that Christabel was a very new woman, author, lesbian and proto-feminist. It is thought unlikely that these poets ever met before, but Roland and Maud run breathlessly along to try and find out what happened. At the same time, as they're falling deeper and deeper into this world that becomes more emotional than intellectual, Roland and Maud can't help but come out of their respective shells and be drawn to each other. They embark on a very up-to-date relationship: coming together too quickly and finding every reason in the book not to remain together - making as many excuses as possible, backing away from each other, and not daring to do what is unexpected. The lessons that they ultimately learn from the past are that their literary heroes were prepared to go outside the boundaries of a very narrow society and take a risk; love is worth whatever chaos it may create."
     Despite (or perhaps because of) his affinity for the novel, LaBute knew that there were fans of the novel whom he felt he could never satisfy. One person's opinion in particular concerned him: "When Antonia Byatt came on-set during shooting, I felt a little trepidation as to how she would react. I was nervous that she would ask very literal questions. But she was very gracious about the leaps that she knew we had to take to compress a book of that size into two hours.
     "You have to go for the spirit of the piece. There were obvious passages that I knew I could not translate - huge chunks of their respective poetry and discourses on Victorian society and politics - and which I had to weave into the tapestry of the world that was created. But there were emotional moments all the way through that I knew I wanted to include. There are coincidences that are better on the page than on the screen and you start to find ways to make the story connect, but in a less coincidental way."
     Weinstein feels that "Neil took the essence of Antonia Byatt's writing and gave it a contemporary spin. When Antonia read the script, she felt that what he had created was in the spirit of her book. However, I do believe that he took her characters and gave them discussions that only Neil LaBute characters would have."
     "It was all a matter of balance," says LaBute, "The difficulty with telling parallel stories, and particularly parallel love stories, is being inventive while not thwarting expectations. It's natural for the audience to expect both sets of lovers to undergo the same kinds of romantic experiences, whereas we were essentially dealing with a study in contrasts.
     "The period story is already so ripe with opulence and detail. It's a bit like grand opera: heightened emotions, costumes, and plot points. Plus, the Victorians don't carry the narrative weight of uncovering a mystery, following clues, and keeping a step ahead of the authorities. Roland and Maud actually have precious little time to themselves in the film, let alone time to fall in and out of love. Finding the right balance in the storytelling, then, became crucial for us, along with being able to artistically compare and contrast social mores from the two periods."
     The biggest change from Possession to Possession was the decision to make the character of Roland Michell an American. In the novel, he is a working-class Briton. In making the movie's Roland an American within the closed English academic world, he could be seen expressly as an outsider.
     As Neil LaBute explains, "I turned Roland into an American because I knew less about the class structure in England than about being someone from another nation spending time in a different society. I did a fellowship at the Royal Court Theatre and poached a bit from there, just in terms of the way they looked at me as an American playwright - I felt louder and more aggressive than I have ever felt in my life. There was a sense of decorum that I tended to overstep without thinking about it, which I tried to imbue Roland with. The impulsive nature of his character brims over in a way that he can't control. For me, this story offered a very potent idea in having two colleagues from very different mindsets and cultures igniting a spark which came not only from them being male and female but also from being products of two different societies."
     Paula Weinstein notes, "Roland is driven by passion for his work. He often steps outside the lines of the text and the way that things have always been done. He makes connections which may not even be there, but rushes on, fuelled by his love of what he might discover."
     Aaron Eckhart, cast as Roland, sees the character as "a guy who's run away from a situation in his past in America. He's in a job he loves, but he really wants to be an artist, and he's now writing about poets. Possession shows the journey he makes to find his heart through Maud, and pursue his true calling."
     Eckhart was able to strongly relate to the character: "We've all been in a situation where we're running from something and we don't know what to do with our life. I have a lot of similarities with Roland physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It's the human condition and we have to face our problems and appreciate the fact that love is not perfect, that it hurts, but that you still have to love."
     Eckhart and LaBute have known each other for over a decade. They attended the same school and have collaborated on stage works and all of LaBute's feature films. Eckhart notes, "This is our fourth movie together and I think it reflects some sort of evolution not only in our film work, as we become more experienced in our trades, but also in the material that we choose. This is unknown territory for both of us - especially for Neil, who had to take on the Victorians in adapting a novel. We can't believe that we're working with these people and having these amazing experiences. I feel we have a great understanding of each other's work: we ask each other a lot of questions and then I beg Neil for direction. We have a trust which has developed."
     LaBute adds, "I've worked with Aaron enough that I think he can do pretty much anything I might throw out as an idea - he's always interested in experimenting. He loves to dress up in different clothes and find himself a new character. There was a comfort zone of working with him that made absolute sense for Possession."
     Essential to the movie is the chemistry between Roland, the unconventional outsider, and the far more pragmatic Maud. She constantly restrains herself, particularly in her dealings with Roland. It is their relationship that forms the core to the film. LaBute elaborates, "It's not a film that's driven by any sort of traditional antagonist. It's driven more and more by Roland and Maud's relationship and the friction that comes from two people who are afraid of committing and being hurt - that's where the real anguish, joy, and conflict comes into the piece."
     Gwyneth Paltrow had always been Weinstein's choice to play Maud. The producer (together with her late husband, producer Mark Rosenberg) had given the actress her first big break, casting her in 1992 in a film-stealing supporting role in "Flesh and Bone." Weinstein confirms, "I've been a huge admirer of Gwyneth's for a long time. I think she's fantastic. She also has the visual qualities of Maud as Antonia Byatt wrote the character - tall, cool, and with the right bearing."
     LaBute concurs, adding, "Gwyneth has the brains and the style that are perfect for the role, but also a lovely vulnerability as a person. She's strong, and when a strong person breaks a little bit and allows somebody in, that's affecting. Gwyneth depicts that transformation beautifully.
     "I think Gwyneth makes a great combination with Aaron in terms of their looks and their acting approaches. It creates a believable attraction and friction, which I felt the characters needed to make the jump from book to screen."
     Paltrow sees Maud as "a person who's incredibly protectionist. She's obviously been through a lot in her life, and I think she's closed down in an emotional way. Her involvement with Fergus [played by Toby Stephens] is safe, in that she's not serious about him and has little respect for him. When Roland comes to Maud for help in unravelling the mystery of the affair between Ash and Christabel, she is at first dismissive. But as time progresses, she realizes that in uncovering the love between these two Victorians, she has also grown to love Roland."
     The Academy Award winner relished working in England - and playing an Englishwoman - once again: "I've done several movies with an English accent, and I really enjoy English filmmaking. In the United States, it's a huge industry that works like a well-oiled machine where it's about product and making money. In the U.K., you get a sense that people work for the art of it. Sometimes it might be a little stickier in the making, but you feel like you're doing something worthwhile with your time and you're making a film that is worth spending your time and energy making."
     Paltrow also enjoyed playing an academic for the first time: "There's a lot of romance in being an academic! It's perceived as this dry, boring profession, but actually it's very much about uncovering things and putting ideas together, solving mysteries and analysing the way people thought in different eras. I think it's a good job."
     In stark contrast to the modern couple's dynamics is the relationship that develops between Victorian poet laureate Randolph Henry Ash and feminist writer Christabel LaMotte. LaBute muses, "Even though we think of ourselves as being far more psychologically adept these days in that we are encouraged to talk about our problems and face issues, we have also found any number of barriers to put up between us. The more we become aware of our world and find ways to reach out, we also find ways to back off from people. There was something about the writing of letters, and the work that it took to meet people in past times, which represented a real investment."
     Although his character and Ash's exist in two different time frames, they are already linked when the film's story begins, recounts Eckhart: "Roland has studied Ash since high school. Ash is a dramatic monologist, but there's a point in his career where he writes love poems - and everybody assumes they are to his wife Ellen. Roland comes to find out, through a miraculous discovery, that the poems were not to his wife but rather to Christabel LaMotte, with whom he fell in love. It's a revelation to Roland, who thought Ash was a monogamist and in many ways a saint. Roland has always thought of Ash as the most honest, upright man who never had to confront a moral issue or ethical question, but he finds out that Ash was a real man with real problems and passions."
     To portray Ash and Christabel, the filmmakers cast Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle. Weinstein calls them "amazing actors. They understood the tentativeness of their characters and particularly of what it meant for Ash, who had lived a loveless life, to reach out and dare to go off with this woman who had less to lose."

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