Possession

No one thinks more carefully about words than poets, scholars, and detectives. All three come together in two parallel love stories spanning two centuries, based on the novel by A.S. Byatt. Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) is an English lit scholar who gets little respect because he is a lowly research assistant and an American. Assigned the trivial task of leafing through a famous 19th century poet's personal copy of a science book, in case the poet made any interesting marginal notes, he makes an astounding discovery. The poet, Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northern), was famous for his devotion to his wife. But between the pages of the old book are what appear to be Ash's love letters to another woman. Impulsively, Roland takes the pages. They are potentially a career-making discovery. But more important, they are exactly the kind of scholarly mystery that fires his mind and spirit. Roland decides that the Ash letters may have been written to Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), a minor poet. Roland goes to meet with Maud Bailey, (Gwyneth Paltrow), a professor, who is not only an expert on LaMotte, but also a great-niece. From there, the story goes back and forth between the two sets of lovers.