Possessor

Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor traffics in cruelty, using a massive technological leap to explore discordant interior desires, specifically those that revolve around curdled ambitions. Andrea Riseborough plays Vos, the corporate mole best suited to being the human bullet in an MK-Ultra machine that combines trailing Hi-Fi wires with a strained approximation of comfort. Once strapped in, Vos is able to beam her thoughts and actions directly into a hijacked patsy, directing them to murder, or otherwise remove, the persons causing wrinkles for her paymasters.

Vos' broadcast inhabits the weak, personal, links in these money-making chains, exploiting the access the vessel provides for, apparently, massive monetary gain. Her handler, Jennifer Jason Leigh's Girder, talks up the fortunes and stock payments to come but Vos is disinterested - disconnected from everything but the act of psychic control. Vos' personal life amounts to a failed marriage and the child she has left behind. Crucially, even in this space Vos performs, practising, then actioning, the kind of disarming, casual pleasantries expected in a functioning relationship.

It's clear the connection to her ex, Michael, and their son, Ira, is frayed; Vos defaulting to platitudes to placate her child or gratification when dealing with the husband. Family is contextualised as a side-mission, a distraction that keeps Vos from her true calling. Possessor describes this work using the language of a debilitating illness; the procedure is messy and imprecise, an all-consuming business trip that offers an intoxicating state of otherness. Whatever kind of person Vos was before she embarked on this career path is irrelevant, she's a communicable idea now, one focused around plunging a knife into a lawyer's throat or the amount of pressure required to shatter a billionaire's jaw. Vos swims on the periphery, initially drunk on the power and immunity her missions provide, later a fading passenger in a link-up that has overstayed its welcome.