Cronenbergs

Lili’s Pick: Eastern Promises

Lanie’s Pick: Possessor

After being so pleasantly surprised by David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, and reading such rave reviews for his son Brandon’s sleek, new techno-thriller Possessor, this week we ventured to view the work of the Cronenberg lineage, by pairing Possessor with Eastern Promises. Both films, while entirely different on the surface, are indicative of the Cronenbergs’ affinity for misleading their audiences—as displayed by the complicated and tortured protagonists of each film. Eastern Promises was excellent, and it would’ve been excellent, with or without Viggo Mortensen’s nude bathhouse fight, but amazingly: that’s just the cherry on top. I love the secrets that come along with every Cronenberg film I’ve seen, and the meticulous way the truth is eventually revealed, and this film had no shortage of secrets. Viggo finds a way to embody sincerity and humanity in every role he plays, without being douchey methody as an actor. I appreciated how there wasn’t a forced and predictable romantic subplot with Viggo and Naomi Watts’ characters, despite their compelling chemistry. I was worried this one might be all hype, as I sometimes find myself feeling during mafia movies, but the story is engrossing from the beginning to the very last frame. Possessor, in a similarly brutal, much more nauseating way, had me hooked from the very start. There is a hypnotic, nightmarish quality to this film that makes its incredibly creative, incredibly terrifying plot even more entrancing. It’s the kind of storytelling that grabs ahold of you and crawls under your skin until it’s over, an alarmingly intrusive sensation I would experience over and over again.