THE GHOST WRITER [Review 2]

This film is actually the new film by Roman Polanski, and is about an un-named ghost writer who is penning the memoirs of former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang.  While writing and researching said memoirs, he comes across secret information that could put his life at risk, and may have been the reason behind the death of Lang’s previous ghost writer.  As I mentioned previously in my MIFF review of this film, this is Polanski in Hitchcock mode, and he succeeds brilliantly with this film (something which can not be said of his previous Hitchcockian thriller, “Frantic”, a rare Polanski failure). 

The film is slowly set up in the first half an hour, introducing the characters, fleshing out the necessary plot, and then it explodes into full Hitchcock mode, and is a riveting thriller.  Surprisingly, it is also extremely funny, with most of the comedy coming from Ewan McGregor, who plays the ghost writer, and is perfectly cast.  Pierce Brosnan plays Adam Lang (who is obviously based on Tony Blair), while Olivia Williams plays his wife Ruth, (who may or may not be involved in the conspiracy McGregor’s character uncovers) and are both excellent, especially Williams.  Again, I must point out how terrible the casting of Kim Cattrall was (who plays a pivotal role), and I still can not believe that someone like Polanski could make the mistake of putting her in any of his films.  The girl just can not act.  The other actor that I must single out is Eli Wallach, who has a brief cameo, but absolutely nails his scene proving, that at age 95, he’s still got it. 

As good as the acting is, it is Roman Polanski’s direction that is the true star of the film.  He is meticulous in the way he puts together a film, and it is so good to see one of the greats continue to be in top form.  It is time for me to have a little rant again, and that is to note my displeasure that the Australian version of this film is stuck with the much blander American title “The Ghost Writer”.  In the UK and Europe, the title is just “The Ghost”, a much better and clever title (not to mention it’s also the title of the book the film is based on), but that would apparently confuse U.S audiences so they changed the title.  Not only that, but in the U.S, the film is altered slightly.  There are a couple of times during the film when characters use a few choice words (the “c” word is uttered once even), but in the American version these words have been dubbed over with less offensive words.  Thankfully, we may have the American title, but we did not get the dubbed version, because I definitely heard the “C” word when I saw the film. 

For a while there, it looked as though this film was going to be Polanski’s swansong, but I’m happy to report that he already has a new film soon to go into production, “God Of Carnage”, starring none other than Jodie Foster.  At 77 years of age, Polanski can not have too many more films left in him, but his latest “The Ghost Writer” is magnificent and recommended to all.

Ranked 15 in Top 25 of 2010