"The Ghost Writer”
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, James Belushi, Eli Wallach
Rated: PG-13
Before reading any further, forget Roman Polanski's personal life.
It's possible to be a great artist while having problems managing your personal affairs. And Polanski is a great director, one of the paramounts of modern film. Consider, among his other films, “Rosemary's Baby,” “Repulsion,” “Chinatown” and “The Pianist.” Not a bad résumé.
His latest, “The Ghost Writer,” is a political thriller along the lines of classics like “The Parallax View,” “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Manchurian Candidate.”
The movie is based on the book “The Ghost” by Robert Harris, who co-wrote the screenplay with Polanski. While the characters are fictitious, Harris, a Brit, is on record as having become disillusioned with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his willingness to truckle to the Bush/Cheney administration, especially concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The prime minister in the film, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), is out of office – voted out, as was Blair – but finds himself in virtual exile in the United States, basing himself, his wife and assistants in a wonder of angular modern architecture on a Cape Cod beach.
Lang is “writing” his memoirs with the help of a long-time aide and confidant as a ghostwriter. The man turns up dead after falling over the side of the ferry on the way back to Cape Cod. Maybe. That will come into play later.
Lang's publishing house needs to find a new ghostwriter, and settles on the character played by Ewan McGregor, know in the film only as “Ghost,” “Ghostwriter,” or as Lang calls him, “Man.” As Lang's assistant, Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall) – who also serves as his mistress – tells him, “He calls everyone that when he can't remember their name.”
Lang begins to tell the writer his story. Even though the manuscript written by the former ghost is done, the publisher hates it and needs McGregor's character to punch it up.
The ghost finds out that Lang, who had no interest in politics in college (he was into acting), entered the political arena to get closer to a girl. That girl, Ruth (Olivia Williams), is now his wife. She also appears to be much of the brains behind Adam's political savvy.
Ruth is homesick for London and tired of watching the obvious attraction between Adam and Amelia but doesn't want to leave her husband while he's still grieving over the loss of his longtime friend.
A few days into the writing project, news breaks on CNN that Lang is being charged with war crimes by the World Court in The Hague. The charges stem from an incident when Lang turned over prisoners of war to be interrogated by the CIA. “Interrogation,” it seems, is a code word for “torture,” and one of the prisoners died. The current government in power in Britain, headed by a long time friend of Lang's, has promised full cooperation. Lang has to find a country that doesn't consider itself under the jurisdiction of the World Court. His choices are countries such as Iraq, China and the United States.
He's opting for the latter.
Lang decides he needs to get out in the public and carry on business as usual, even though underneath he is seething, especially about the way he thinks his colleagues at home are throwing him under the international bus.
Brosnan chomps into the role of Lang and has obviously studied men of power. He can be charming, falsely charming, perturbed and downright angry – all in the space of a few minutes.
The writer has moved from the small inn where he had been staying to Lang's house, but Ruth realizes that the ghost can't make a daily run of the gauntlet of the media folk that have descended on Cape Cod and are holding the Lang house under a virtual siege.
Ruth puts the writer in the room formerly occupied by Adam's friend and first ghostwriter. While removing some of that man's personal items, he finds an interesting packet of photos.
The contents of the packet set up the third act, sending the ghost far outside of the sphere he's suppose to be covering. He thinks he might have found the reason that Lang was always so willing to go along with anything and everything Washington wanted him to do.
He also has a close call on the ferry that the former ghost was riding the night he died. This scene is the most action-packed, as the film builds its tension from plot development rather than mindless action scenes. Polanski is a master at this kind of film-making.
As a caveat, I'd advise not loading up on water or soda, as “The Ghost Writer” is one of those films that warrants seeing every frame. The events of the final 20 minutes are simply stunning.
It's one of Polanski's best efforts and will certainly be looked upon as one of the best movies of 2010.
Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.
Search through an alphabetized archive of Jim Wunderle's past movie reviews in the Movies & More section of sbj.net/life!
