The Ghost Writer (***)
Directed by: Roman Polanski Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall, John Bernthal, James Belushi, Timothy Hutton, Tom Wilkinson, Robert Pugh
Seen: May 30th 2010
*** Out of ****
On the American east-coast, a car remains behind on a ferry after docking, and as the car is towed and investigated, the viewer is taken to a remote beach, where the body of a man is being buffeted by crashing waves pulling him back and forth in the tide. He turns out to have been the ghost writer for British Prime Minister Adam Lang’s (Brosnan) memoirs, and as the book isn’t finished, his successor must be chosen. In London, a man (McGregor, an anonymous character, the Ghost Writer) walks into Reinhardt Publishing’s office and with the security being tight he jokingly asks whether they are afraid of being bombed by Random House on the way up to his interview. His boss feels he is not the man for the job, but his agent Rick Ricardelli (Bernthal) thinks he can do it. He markets himself well to the American publisher (an almost unrecognisable Belushi), and Lang’s lawyer Sidney Kroll (Hutton), and is immediately selected for the job. He’ll leave for Lang’s beach home on an American island that same night.
On arrival he is greeted by Amelia Bly (Cattrall), Lang’s closest personal assistant, who takes him up to Lang’s study where the manuscript is held in a secure locked box, and tells him he has six hours to read it, to see what work is needed before it can be published. As he pulls his face in exasperation after finishing, Ruth Lang (Williams) stands in the door and asks him if it was really that bad, before he joins them in picking Lang up from the airport. When they all return home, the writer and Lang start their interviews for the book but there is something else going on; Richard Rycart (Pugh), an old friend and political colleague of Lang’s, is accusing Lang of war crimes, and an investigation is imminent. As events unfold, the ghost writer becomes increasingly curious as to his predecessor’s fate, and in a bicycle trip around the island, he learns a bit more than he maybe should have. The intrigue keeps on building as the writer keeps investigating, and while it never reaches a point of unbearable tension, the story still remains involving.
McGregor gives a great performance as the ghost writer, and the subtlety of him being anonymous only hit me while I was searching for his character name to write up this review. Brosnan gives a great performance as the British prime minister conflicted not necessarily by the things he is accused of, but more by why he is accused at all and how to deal with it. As Lang’s wife, Williams convinces as the grass widow of the prime minister who tries to find some comfort in various other places. Cattrall is surprisingly bearable considering her Sex and the City legacy, and small appearances by Belushi, Hutton and Wilkinson are effective without being overbearing.
The Ghost Writer, while intriguing and effective, still manages to feel long winded. You start wondering how the plot will wind down from 30 minutes before its end, and even though the story keeps throwing out new mysteries while answering previous ones, some subconscious part of you wishes for the turns to just end. That might have made it sound worse than it actually is, but some will find it unbearable (in my screening two people walked out before things got long-winded). I was however intrigued right to the end, which contains the only major flaw in my eyes – the final conclusion is too forced, and for anyone to arrange this kind of thing this quickly with this little motivation is impossible (the difficulty of explaining something without giving away plot details…). The Ghost Writer is a good movie, maybe even very good, but it will probably not be remembered for very long.
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