A week of extremes on the cinema calendar, with a gem starring McGregor and Brosnan.
Starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall. Directed by Roman Polanski.
Ewan McGregor as the unnamed Ghost Writer in Roman Polanski’s new film.
The Ghost Writer
The film opens with a ferry shrouded in fog and a washed-up body on a moonless beach. It ends, superbly, with a static shot of a London street surprised by the invisible yet inevitable. In between, Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer treats us to pulpy twists, mocking humour, and a Google search that reveals a top government secret. But never mind.
This modest material is elevated to a moody thriller by Polanski's direction, by his precise composition and his premonition that all life (including his own) is running towards a cul-de-sac. This is no Chinatown, but this ghost haunts us with delicious persistence.
Based on a novel by Robert Harris, The Ghost Writer could be studied as an allegory of the US influence over the British government during the Bush-Blair years. But that, for now, would take away the savoury delight that Polanski and his actors dutifully, amusedly serve up.
Ewan McGregor's unnamed _ he's a ghost, after all _ character is hired to fix the autobiographical manuscript of scandalous former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, played with casual verve by Pierce Brosnan.
In accepting this well-paid job, the Ghost writer must travel to the soggy, rain-swept Martha's Vineyard off the US coast, where Lang, his wife and their staff hole up in a gated house surrounded by wet sand and bodyguards
This beautiful house _ part industrial-chic, part dungeon, with a study framed by a large window overlooking the perpetually damp, depressing Atlantic sky _ is smouldering with secrets.
Lang lives with his opinionated wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), but the affairs are mostly run by Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall, much more level-headed than her Samantha in Sex and the City), a secretary with whom Lang is apparently having a fling.
Upon arriving at the house, the Ghost finds that Lang is being hounded by the media for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and torturing of terrorist suspects, which is now blown into an international scandal. The Ghost also senses that he's let himself into an unusual situation when he learns that his predecessor recently died in a drowning accident.
As we expect from the Polanski universe, eccentric details creep up, which our ghost deals with with a mix of bewilderment and pluck _ just like JJ Gittes in Chinatown.
The Ghost, a man with no past and no opinion, becomes a blank screen where everybody around him projects their lies and manipulations, and instead of focusing on editing the memoirs, he's swept into the intrigues of Lang's hidden past and then the investigation of the death of the previous ghost writer.
What Polanski does here is not a rug-pulling, heart-thumping thriller, but something along the classical school where suspense slowly boils; we can go back to Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby or even Frantic to familiarise ourselves with the man in top form.
In The Ghost Writer, he makes each scene seem longer that most contemporary thrillers; watch the coasting, masterfully-sustained sequence when the Ghost leaves the island to pursue a lead.
For Polanski, it's not all just about the unravelling of the mystery _ and indeed the mystery here isn't terribly original _ but it's about the cagey psychology of the characters, how they size each other up, interact, and how we're not sure who's speaking the truth.
All of this is underlined by deadpan humour that comes at the most unexpected moments, as if to remind us that even a man facing a cul-de-sac can still console his worried soul with a dry laugh, in his own throat.
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