If I had to describe Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer in words that sound like a perfume commercial, I’d describe it as a film of “quiet intensity.” As I thought about the movie after coming out of the cinema, those are the two words that popped into my mind over and over again: quiet intensity. And realism. But not the kind of realism that mediocre artists create by having characters stand around and be unpleasant a lot – in other words, not “What is it, Sebastian? I’m rearranging matches.” No, this is realism as in this feels like it’s real.
The Ghost Writer is compelling in a way few movies are these days. Your eyes are glued to the screen, you try to observe every detail and interpret every line of dialogue; something which, thankfully, the movie allows you to do. From the first to the last shot, you’re entranced by the atmosphere and the story and the characters. You’re living in their world, and observing events that matter. When something happens, you react on a very personal/emotional level.
The story is simple and yet complex and layered. An unnamed ghost writer (our protagonist) is hired to quickly finish/re-write a manuscript. The manuscript happens to be the autobiography of Adam Lang, a British prime minister now being accused of war crimes. So far so good; the war crimes controversy, as one character points out, is only going to help the book sell more. But there’s the tiny problem that the last ghost writer died, supposedly by accident or suicide. Only things don’t quite match up, and soon the Ghost is starting to find out things that might endanger his life.
The film is based on a novel by Robert Harris, with an excellent screenplay by Harris and Polanski. I haven’t read the book, but Verena read some of Harris’s Rome novels (Pompeii, Imperium and Lustrum) and thought they were very good. Given that Adam Lang is clearly based on Tony Blair, it is important to note that Harris was an enthusiastic supporter of New Labour and Blair, until the Iraq war changed his mind. Harris was close to Blair, and I think that is one reason that this story feels like it was written from the inside out; that is to say, it feels like it’s been written by someone who witnessed these events from an internal, if slightly removed, position. Much like the movie’s Ghost.
But this is not a film about Tony Blair. It’s not an allegory (which, like Tolkien, I cordially dislike). It is inspired by the Blair case, it applies to the Blair case, but it’s more than a thinly-disguised attack on one person. It’s a not-at-all-disguised attack on a system and the brutal methodology that comes with it. That’s why it will remain powerful many years from now; that’s why it will be powerful to people (those lucky few) who have not heard of Tony Blair and the Iraq war. That’s not to say it’s the kind of “timeless truths about humanity” bullshit that cowardly artists try to sell us; it is timeless because it is so very much about its time. About today; about how our system does things, and the people who suffer the consequences.
And because it’s not an allegory, because it’s not just about Tony Blair, because it talks about the larger mechanisms rather than making this about a personal attack, it can also make its characters real human beings. These are not caricatures of evil – they are people. Some of them are nasty and arrogant and foolish, and many of them are sell-outs, but they’re not mustachio-twirling lunatics. This is a remarkable feat of screenwriting and acting.
Speaking of acting, the actors are uniformly excellent. Much praise will – naturally – go to Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams as Mr. and Mrs. Lang, characters that they portray with subtlety and complexity. Brosnan is a fantastic actor (see The Matador or The Tailor of Panama for remarkable performances) who does far too few good movies, and it’s wonderful to see Olivia Williams out of the Dollhouse and doing some really challenging work. Kim Cattrall is also in this movie, playing a difficult character that’s miles away from Sex and the City and very believable.
But a great deal of praise should also go to Ewan McGregor, the movie’s Ghost. He is a classical leading man here – not so much trying to impress us with chewing the scenery as simply drawing us in and making us experience the movie through his eyes, while remaining a character that feels absolutely real and believable. This takes a lot of skill, which Ewan McGregor has. I can think of few actors who can be so likeable and interesting without losing touch with the reality of their characters. (Also, he was a much better Obi-Wan than Alec Guinness. Chew on that, fanboys.)
There’s more great actors in the movie (Tom Wilkinson is always a favourite), and they all deliver excellent and memorable performances, even when they only have one or two scenes.
All of this is possible because of a script that, like the rest of the movie, is quietly realistic. In The Ghost Writer, people talk like real people. Childish movies try to impress us by having characters say fuck every two seconds; grown-up, intelligent movies have their characters say fuck when a normal adult would say fuck. There are short explosions of personal and political drama, there are understated sinister moments, and there is plenty of humour, but none of it ever feels unnatural or forced. There’s no scenes designed for the trailer or to get the actor an Oscar.
Realism isn’t when the camera shakes and a character mumbles some dialogue about the impossibility of human contact. Realism is the way the Ghost’s bicycle half-sinks into the gravel when he tries to ride it, or the way Adam Lang talks about the media, or what you might call the movie’s car chase: simple, lacking explosions, but quite terrifying.
The humour is a big part of it, by the way. Real life, even at its grimmest, is rarely as grim as some artists would have it. Peope make jokes. Sometimes it’s the only way to avoid going mad. Even in Nazi concentration camps, people still made jokes. It’s in our nature. And thankfully, despite its heavy subject manner, The Ghost Writer has many funny moments. I’m not talking about comic relief here – just about realism. And, dramatically speaking, the humour also serves to bring out the horror and the fear all the more strongly.
The horror in this movie is subtle but shocking. When an old protester who lost a son to the war screams at Adam Lang, you’d have to be a monster not to be moved and disturbed. This is where the movie is so much more than simply a thriller – because the actions of Adam Lang and his accomplices are something we know from our world, something with very real consequences. To the politicians and intelligence agencies it may simply be a game, a fun little war game where you can make a lot of money while pretending to save the world, but the consequences are real and deadly. People lose their children, their husbands, their wives, their parents – and their own lives. Unspeakable pain is brought into the world, and that in turn has further consequences, because those who feel unspeakable pain can rarely act by the standards of reason.
Yet, as I said, this isn’t simply about the crimes of Tony Blair, real and terrible though they are. His opponents are not knights in shining armor, at least not the ones who are also part of the system. A single man’s corruption is not what has brought us here.
(As for the realism of the plot itself, ask Dr. David Kelly. No, wait, you can’t – because he’s dead, and because all the files related to the postmortem have been ordered to remain secret for the next 70 years, without explanation. Funny, that.)
A final word, then, about the film’s cinematography. It’s beautiful. So simple, so calm, and yet so compelling and memorable. Polanski is the kind of director who knows (unlike, say, Michael Bay) that actually being able to see a well-composed shot is a lot more powerful than shaking the camera at some CGI. You can feel the rain in this movie. You know what the Ghost feels when he walks over gravel, or over sandy paths leading to the beach – the sensory impact of the film works on many levels. I wish more movies were like this.
So, to wrap up: The Ghost Writer is a classical thriller with strong, non-simplistic political content, written brilliantly, played excellently, and directed by one of the grandmasters of modern cinema. Very highly recommended.
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Sounds like a film that must be seen. Will put it on my list immediately.
Great! I’m really looking forward to seeing it. So glad you liked it!