If you have read any of my Cronenberg on Sex and Gender series than you know I am a huge fan of the director’s work. So I was extremely excited when I realized his son Brandon Cronenberg became a director and made films that dealt in many of the same ideas. His 2020 film Possessor has since become one of my favorite films, and that has much to do with the film's main character, and killer woman, Tasya Vos. While she seems to portray some of the same cold demeanor that other female killers in film tend to do, there are a lot of nuances to her character. It is especially interesting watching Tasya balance being an incredibly good assassin, with being a subpar parent and partner. 

Possessor is about Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) an assassin who through brain implants, is able to enter people’s bodies in order to carry out assassinations. Once her assignment is complete she must kill herself in order to return to her body. While she is very successful in completing her assignments it is clear she has trouble coming back to her own life, and struggles with being a wife and mother. This is only complicated by her boss Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who wants her to spend less time with her family and more time working. Tasya decides to take on a major hit and go after a wealthy CEO. She is implanted into Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott) who is engaged to the CEO’s daughter. But eventually their personalities meld and the two struggle to control his body. 

So why does Tasya kill? On the surface it is an easy answer, she kills because it's her job and that is how she is able to support her family.  However, as we spend more time with Tasya, it is clear that she likes what she does. One of the reasons she seems to struggle being an attentive wife and mother is because she cannot accept being a ruthless killer with someone who also needs to be loving and maternal. More and more it is clear that Tasya is less comfortable in her own body and life than she is entering the lives of complete strangers. One of the biggest arcs for her character is the fact that she is able to accept that she likes killing and she does not feel guilty about those she has killed. 

While it might seem wild that freedom for this character is being a ruthless cold-blooded killer, it is a fascinating look into what it means to be a woman and how modern day women deal with what they actually want, with what society tells us we should want. Even today the biggest accomplishments for a woman should be to get married and be a great mother. And if those are things we do not want, we feel the need to have a thousand explanations as to why we do not want those things. I often think of what life would have been like for my own mother if she had decided to stay in school and not get married when she did, what dreams would she have followed? In Tasya’s case, it seems that the bonds of her family life tie her down from being so many things.

Of course her very unhealthy relationship with her boss Girder complicates that matter further. Is it possible Girder convinced her that she wants to work more than she wants to be a mother? Girder makes it clear those are her intentions. Even from the beginning she does not hide her judgment when Tasya says she wants to take some time off to be with her family. But when Tasya goes to see her family, she is so disconnected from them that she has to practice greeting them and talking with them before she walks in the door. She continues to have vivid violent thoughts when she is with her son and even when she is having sex with her husband. She is with them less than a day before she decides she wants to go back to work and escape from the confines of domestic life. 

While her ultimate goal in her work is to complete her assassinations she also gets the freedom to be completely different people. When she is in Colin’s body she has sex with his fiancee and seems to be more comfortable being a man and having sex with a woman than she does in the moment she has sex with her own husband. She is able to dip in and out of so many different lives and does not have to choose to be any particular person or follow any particular path. While many of us do not dream of being paid assassins, the idea of that much freedom could be easily appealing to many of us. 

So we know why she kills, but how is Tasya portrayed in the film? She does seem to have a cold demeanor, especially when she is around her family. However her search for identity and meaning in the confines of her own female body are really relatable. There is a huge amount of empathy that Brandon Cronenberg gives this character, even with how complicated we might feel about her. She struggles being able to complete her assignments because she does not want to kill herself and return to her true body, with all of the responsibilities that await her. Unlike the rest of us, she knows what is on the other side of her deaths, she knows what her Hell looks like, and it makes it impossible for her to go back. 

Boiling Tasya’s struggle down to the struggle many women have trying to balance their own desires, with the societal pressures put upon us, it makes her an incredibly relatable character. So by the end of the film when her family is dead and she finally realizes she does not need to pretend to feel guilt for what she does, it is freeing. It might be too much to call it a happy ending, but watching someone come into their own and accept who they are, is still pretty beautiful and liberating to watch. While it is clear that she is still in the confines of an unhealthy, emotionally abusive relationship with her boss, she does at least have a handle on who she is. She is no longer pulled in multiple directions and she can continue to do the work that she loves. 

Tasya is so complicated and that is one of the reasons I adore her so much. Every time I watch this film there are new things I notice about her character and her struggle. While it might be tough for some to see past the killer who dreams that her family was dead, there is something inherently human and feminine about the struggle she faces.