Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
5/1/10
What
the name Roman Polanski means to you tends to vary depending upon your
age and cinematic disposition. Those old enough to have lived through
his late 60's-early 70's heyday tend to break down into lovers and haters
depending upon their tolerance for his dark (sometime downright Satanic)
themes. But having been five at the time of his 1977 arrest on charges
of statutory rape, I'm among the generations who tend to regard the Chinatown
auteur as a fugitive first and a filmmaker second. Perhaps it's fitting,
then, that his most artistically successful film in quite some time should
be an homage to a time when he was just plain old Roman Polanski.
The Ghost Writer (released, ironically, after his arrest following
years on the lamb) is set in 2009 but very much a film of the early 70's,
with its overwrought score, politically paranoid subject matter and, most
of all, sense that a world-shaking conspiracy can be as simple as it is
shocking. The Ghost Writer is gripping in large part because
it's so loose. Not a lot happens during its running time, but it's
consistently engaging and even funny. Ewan McGregor is perfectly
cast at the center of a great ensemble inviting us to guess not just what
the movie's secret is, but who among them knows it.
We
never learn our hero's name, the credits call him The Ghost (Ewan McGregor).
He's a writer, a ghost writer to be specific, and nails a big interview
to do the actual writing on the autobiography of former British Prime Minister
Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). After being mugged on the way out of
the meeting, he's whisked off to a home on Martha's Vineyard provided by
the publisher where the Lang entourage is supposed to be able to focus
on the book. But there are rising tides of trouble: a former
political rival (Robert Pugh) files charges with the International Criminal
Court that Lang authorized the rendition and torture of terror suspects
while in office. Furthermore, the Ghost starts to learn more about
his predecessor on the project, a presumed suicide who seemed to be conducting
his own investigation into inconsistencies in Lang's backstory. The
book itself is almost forgotten as, on the one hand, he becomes more and
more involved with the Lang camp, writing press releases and striking up
a relationship with the former PM's wife Ruth (Olivia Williams), and on
the other draws closer and closer to the secret that got at least one man
killed. If he's not careful, our hero really will be a ghost.
Polanski
and his team create a crackerjack thriller atmosphere in which The Ghost
Writer unfolds. Cinematographer Pawel Edelman makes the German
island Sylt (doubling for Martha's Vineyard) and the surrounding waters
look spectacularly menacing, while the team led by Production Designer
Albrecht Konrad and Supervising Art Director David Scheunemann make the
Lang compound a fascinatingly functional space. Composer Alexandre
Desplat goes for broke with a frantic, old-school score that feels as a
whole with these elements in a way it might not in a film with a less flambouyant
style. Polanski has an excellent sense of what he wants to do with
the camera, all the way through to a diabolically memorable final shot,
and keeps things moving even when not all that much is happening.
Part
of the reason that works is that the performances are so lived-in.
The Ghost is tugging on some very dangerous strings, but McGregor plays
him as a man consumed with day-to-day irritations even in the process of
trying to learn The Truth. As such, he gets a lot of laughs without
ever breaking character: you just know that if anyone really had
an adventure like this, it would be a real pain in addition to probably
getting you killed. Brosnan has the stature to play a world leader
in his sleep, but the way that his Adam Lang is always vaguely befuddled
and ill-at-ease is what really makes him feel true. Williams, too,
specializes in the iciness that a politician's wife demands, but seems
more worn down and irked by her years on the job than conventionally sinister.
Kim Cattrall does a solid job affecting the shame of being a staff member
mistress everyone knows about, and Tom Wilkinson is terrific in a couple
of key scenes as an old acquaintance of Lang's who is a very important
piece of the puzzle if only the Ghost could figure out why.
That
puzzle essentially hides in plain sight throughout The Ghost Writer,
leading to revelations that don't so much shock with their cleverness as
impress with their smooth believability. An early 70's audience might
well have been shocked at such ideas, but we're well down the rabbit hole
when it comes to political corruption and manipulation these days, so it's
more the way The Ghost Writer's revelations effectively keep it
simple that makes them work. And there's a great kicker at the end
that the movie's really been beating us over the head with the entire time,
only to step back, wink and say “bet you didn't see that coming, although
you SHOULD have!” British viewers (and Anglophiles in general) will
find much to interest them in the unsubtle parallels between Lang and Tony
Blair, whose allegiance to his American friends in high places always puzzled
me even on this side of the Atlantic.
The
Ghost Writer breezes on by, delivering considerably more entertainment
value than your average political thriller. A movie like this is
all about the execution, and the cast and crew are all working at an extremely
high level that speaks well to the talents of their iconic director.
It could have even been the cue for a commercial comeback for Roman Polanski
if not for, you know... |
