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Title: The Ghost Writer
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is a fair amount of violence, sexual scenes, and brief strong language. Recommended for ages 13 and up. |
“The Ghost Writer” is the latest film from Academy Award-winning director Roman Polanski. It may possibly also be his last film depending on whether or not he is successfully extradited from a 32-year old crime and scandal he’s been involved with. Indeed, his scandal seems to go on almost as long as the scandal Adam Lang (Pierce Bronson) has going for him in this film. Though the focus of the movie is on the dirty politician (possibly inspired by Tony Blaire), the protagonist of the film is on the ghost writer who has been hired to clean up the manuscript of Adam’s memoir’s. The ghost writer is never named but simply referred to as Ghost throughout the film, and is played with surprising conviction by Ewan McGregor.
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McGregor has never struck me as a noticeably good actor, but here he is perfect as an unimportant writer who somehow gets caught up in a grand political scandal. Every time he comes close to discovering the truth the truth seems two steps ahead of him, like all political scandals I suppose. Though I must stress it take half the film for this to become obvious to the viewers, as up to this point it looks like the film is simply going to be about a man who ends up writing a much more scathing book then originally intended. Instead the movie turns into a “man against the corrupt government system” story, a subject - I’m certain - Polanski is also very familiar with.
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Polanski have directed both action heavy movies and character driven movies. Though good at both, in my opinion he rarely successful does both at the same time. In this case I think the more works more as a political action thriller then as a good character drama. None of the characters are really deep or insightful, and many are only distinguishable from their cartoonish personality traits. Adam screams, his wife is intolerable, Ghost always looks like a lost puppy. This is rarely noticeable, except when the ending comes. Without giving anything away the ending is one of those great surprise endings. It certainly surprises and impresses, but without solid characters it doesn’t have the emotional punch that would have made it one of “the” classic endings.
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Who knows, maybe I’m also being too soft on the movie, as the ending partly surprises because there’s little way to see it coming. I sort of just accepted any surprise twists in the film because politics rarely make sense as it is. I also accepted all this knowing that this could very well be the last film we get from a great film maker. No, I don’t want him to escape charges. He deserves to be sentenced for what he’s done. But as A.O. Scott said “while the art doesn’t dismiss the crime, the crime doesn’t diminish the art.” I’m in agreement of that for Polanski has made some great films. If this is his last at least he ends his career with a good film. Yeah, I would have liked his final film to be great over good, but sometimes politics get in the way of these things.
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