The H-Bomb: A ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor), is hired by a bald James Belushi to take over the writing duties of the memoirs of former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), after the original writer dies in a mysterious accident. The fact that this Ghostwriter is particularly talented and doesn’t follow politics makes him ideal for the job. The Ghostwriter flies out to Lang’s vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard to find that the previous writer’s book is kept under strict lock and key, and that he’s not allowed to take it off the compound, forcing him to work under the watchful eye of Lang‘s not-so-subtly hostile assistant, Amelia (Kim Cattrall).
Meanwhile, Lang is being brought up on charges by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes committed under his administration. So while Lang flies to Washington for some major damage control, the Ghostwriter is left alone on the compound with Lang’s secretive and seductive wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams). As the Ghostwriter starts digging into Lang’s shady past, he comes to find that the previous writer’s death may not have been an accident.
Roman Polanski has been in the news a lot lately. Not because of this film, but because of an unresolved, decades old legal matter that… well, since we all know the story, I won’t get into that. So while I’m not particularly a fan of Polanski the human being, Polanski the filmmaker is nothing short of a genius. “Rosemary’s Baby”, “The Tenant”, and “Chinatown” are masterpieces of the thriller genre, and hell, I even loved his shamefully over-looked “The Ninth Gate”. And though “The Ghost Writer” doesn’t quite measure up to his past classics, it’s still a damn good film and serves as proof that Polanski has not lost his touch as a suspenseful storyteller.
This film has often been described as a “political thriller”, though I would consider it more of a mystery than a thriller, because there are no real thrills or action to speak of, just a great deal of intrigue and gradual dread building as the Ghostwriter peels back the layers of Lang’s life and career and discovers the secrets of his past. It’s meticulous in its design and very deliberately paced, therefore it’s definitely not for those with limited attention spans. It actually did remind me of “Chinatown” a bit, mixing power and corruption with a murder mystery (the dead men in both films even died the same way), but for me it didn’t quite achieve the brilliance of that film. Not that I expected it to, but…
As the plot unfolds, it does draw many parallels with recent history between the U.S. and Britain and the Iraq War, and how Tony Bla… ahem… Adam Lang may be little more than a puppet for the U.S. To the film’s credit, it never becomes too heavy handed in this regard, it never feels like we’re being beat over the head with any kind of political message… it’s all just part of the story.
McGregor is excellent as the Ghostwriter, a character who we learn very little about (we’re never even told his actual name). He gives us the sense that the Ghostwriter is someone, who while successful, isn’t fully satisfied with his career, and who was pretty apathetic to the world around him until his eyes were opened by his latest assignment and… well, I wouldn’t want to give anymore away, would I? When it comes to mysteries such as these, the less one divulges, the better.
Although I was never a big fan of Brosnan as James Bond (I just found him boring as 007, sorry), I always thought he was a good actor (“The Tailor of Panama”, “The Thomas Crown Affair”) and here he shines as the Tony Blair-like Lang. He’s a man who seems affable on the surface, always smiling for strangers and the cameras the way any good politician would, but who has something darker lurking underneath. Cattrall (“Sex and the City”- Barf) does fine, if you can get past her hokey British accent, which I couldn’t entirely. And Williams (“Rushmore”, “The Sixth Sense”) really excels as Lang’s wife, a genuine ice queen who harbors some dark secrets of her own.
Rounding out the cast are Tom Wilkinson, who plays a college chum of Lang’s who happens to be an enigmatic character himself, Timothy Hutton, who is pretty much wasted in a throwaway role as Lang’s attorney, and Eli Wallach, who puts in a cameo as a Martha’s Vineyard resident who believes that the original ghostwriter’s death was more than an accident.
This, for me, is definitely second tier Polanski, not amongst his best. Still, second tier Polanski is certainly better than most of the crap that’s floating around out there these days. It’s an intelligent, well crafted, and beautifully photographed film by a great filmmaker that is absolutely worth checking out.
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