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Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is a fragile-looking young woman with an unusual name, but in her company she’s considered a living legend — the best assassin among those who, using special technology, can transfer their consciousness into the body of another, unsuspecting person close to the target.
She might hide in the body of a hostess greeting a lawyer — whom she will later brutally stab to death right at a reception — or in the body of a new boyfriend of the daughter of a major IT company owner, eliminating both during a staged public family quarrel. After completing the job, all that’s left is to put the gun in the host’s mouth and pull the trigger — no witnesses, no questions from the police. But lately, this final step is becoming harder, and Tasya herself starts experiencing strange transformations.
From the opening frames, it’s clear that Brandon Cronenberg — for whom this is only his second feature — is very much his father’s son. Like David Cronenberg, the founder of the body-horror genre, he doesn’t shy away from showing violence (though the number of such scenes isn’t excessive, they’re hard to forget). Yet what’s most striking here isn’t the gore, but the way the main character’s personality transforms, and how the film tackles a theme Christopher Nolan explored in Inception.
Where Nolan turned the planting of an idea into a high-budget tour through the corridors of the human mind, Cronenberg Jr. presents it as an existential trip seen through the characters’ eyes. Visually, it recalls Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy — with its deep red hues, strange and unsettling imagery, a face-melting sequence, and the otherworldly presence of Andrea Riseborough. Interestingly, like Cosmatos, Brandon is also the son of a famous director (George P. Cosmatos, known for Cobra and Rambo: First Blood Part II), though Brandon has inherited far more from his father.
Still, it’s already clear that Brandon is carving his own path. Using techniques he knows well, he tells a story similar to Inception but digs deeper: what happens if the implanted “idea” infects the mind of the person planting it? In this case, that “idea” is violence itself, the inevitable endpoint of every infiltration.
Cronenberg Jr. surprises the audience with a truly unpredictable twist (or amuses them, depending on your perspective). Without spoiling too much, let’s just say that Sean Bean — famous for playing noble characters who die abruptly — actually survives a gruesome assassination attempt here.
And in a playful nod to Nolan, Cronenberg titles his film with the palindrome-like Possessor, evoking Nolan’s Tenet. The result is a bold, intelligent, and visually striking film that will linger in your mind for a long time.
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