FILM REVIEW: The Ghost Writer
© A.J. Malouin 2010
(Rating: 3 by MovieMan.)
(See our side-bar page “How We Rate Movies”)
(2010/France/Germany/UK. Directed by Roman Polanski.)
One of the footprints left by a great film is that, for two hours, it takes us totally out of the world we’re in, and plops us kerbang into another one. Watching a well-done film, we give ourselves over completely to it, totalling forgetting the life we left out there in the lobby.
Such a film is “The Ghost Writer.”
Our story? A ghostwriter, played by Ewan McGregor, is hired to complete the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister, played winningly by Pierce Brosnan. The money is very good, but the project is quite dangerous. The previous ghostwriter died under mysterious circumstances.
The film opens with the previous ghostwriter’s BMW being towed off a car ferry. Miles away, the car’s owner washes up on a beach. How this came to be is the crux of our story.
This film’s pacing is perfect. There’s not one dull spot in the whole shining experience. Piece by piece the tension builds to what, in the end, seems like an inescapable finale.
Polanski’s stylish direction of action, tension, plot and camera placement has not diminished one iota since the glorious days during which we first discovered “Chinatown.” “The Ghost Writer” is a pleasure to watch. From the streets of London to the former Prime Minister fortress-like retirement home on a wind-swept northeastern American seashore, the art direction and set design are lush and inviting.
The set piece in which The Ghost is interviewed and hired by the publishing house is as well-crafted as any meeting you are ever going to see. Timothy Hutton and Jim Belushi engineer and dominate the meeting in ways that the camera document beautifully. That meeting is only the beginning of the pleasures we’ll see in “The Ghost Writer.”
Eli Wallich puts in a brief appearance out on the island which moves the story along nicely. Other characters contribute seamless advancements to the building mountain of discomfort and dread. By the time the ghostwriter visits Professor Paul Emmett (played by the elegantly sinister Tom Wilkinson) we the audience can see no way out from The Inevitable.
At the end, Polanski engineers The Inevitable in a way you are not likely soon to forget.
“The Ghost Writer” may well be the best film out there right now. Any way you look at it, it’s an experience that invites repeat viewings. Don’t miss it.
(2 hours, 8 minutes. Rated PG-13 in the USA for language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence, and a drug reference.. In English. With Ewan McGregor as The Ghost, Jon Bernthal as Rick Ricardelli, Kim Cattrall as Amelia Bly, Pierce Brosnan as Adam Lang, Tim Preece as Roy, James Belushi as John Maddox, Olivia Williams as Ruth Lang, Timothy Hutton as Sidney Kroll, Tom Wilkinson as Paul Emmett, Eli Wallach as a Vineyard old man.)