Possession combines two elements that were meant to go together: the difficult pursuit of knowledge, and passionate romantic love. The lives of Victorian and twentieth century lovers run in parallel in this story; one wishes there were as much passion in the latter as in the former, but then you’ve got a passionless Aaron Eckhart as a “brush and flush kinda guy” – the male role. And Gwyneth Paltrow’s treatment of the ideologically inhibited gender studies professor is… well… inhibited. She smiles a couple of times but, for the most part, she just lies there, so to speak. I think the film would’ve been better had the entire thing been a period piece. Still, while the dialogue was wonderful, and the Victorian storyline suitably heart-rending (lovers caught by their promises and society), there just didn’t seem to be much acting. Most of lovely Jennifer Ehle’s work seems to have amounted to smiling in a composed worldly-for-the-time miss nothing kind of way. These were characters in costumes reading parts. It’s hard not to recommend the film, though; the dialogue and the plot were enough that I’d see it again despite its shortcomings.