Movie Review: The Ghost Writer (2010)

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Frantic
Knife in the Water
Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired

AKA The Ghost Writer

Since Ewan McGregor's character is as anonymous as his eponymous profession implies, it's fittingly appropriate that the nameless man who introduces himself as “The Ghost” would find himself working on his latest assignment at an isolated seaside home he dubs, “Shangri-la in reverse.”

And although it's the duty of any ghost writer worth his laptop to be discreet and forsake all credit in making the individual he's writing memoirs seem even more extraordinary on paper, in the case of the ghost in filmmaker Roman Polanski's sophisticated new film, McGregor is not merely the second fiddle but rather the second fiddle of a second fiddle in his assignment writing the life of former prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan).

The fifth and last interviewee who openly tells Lang's agent (Timothy Hutton) that he-- like everyone else-- doesn't read political memoirs, McGregor's ability to turn things around quickly as evidenced on his curriculum vitae lands him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a month's work as a replacement ghost after the first scribe wound up mysteriously dead on the shoreline.

Mugged on the way home by hoodlums who only swipe another manuscript handed to him for a read-through by Lang's agent, McGregor is in for several more shocks when he realizes just how dangerous politics can be. And soon he learns he's only allowed to read the dull autobiography in the privacy of the Lang estate as it's kept under lock key and security code by the woman openly having an affair with the married politician, played by an understated Kim Cattrall.

Yet the simple tweak job turns into a massive overhaul when Brosnan's Tony Blair-like character (and the subject of the book) is threatened by the Hague of being convicted of war crimes in knowingly sending suspects away on “torture flights” following the 9/11 attacks. Hastily, McGregor becomes embroiled in the mess after he lends his professional assistance in writing a statement of denial that makes him an accomplice, should the accusations prove true.

Although McGregor is able to just turn off his moral judgment like a light-switch to work on the book, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the evidence and further inconsistencies in Lang's statements and the facts. And his suspicions are both confirmed and aroused after he uncovers documents and a GPS vehicle route left by the original deceased ghost. Additionally, he's lured into a web of seduction, which blossoms in the midst of scandal-induced isolation when he falls into bed with Lang’s wife (Olivia Williams).

Frequently dubbed in the advertising as Polanski's first thriller in over two decades, the film which has just earned the exiled Oscar winning filmmaker the director prize at Berlin is likewise one of the strongest English language mysteries for adults to hit the multiplex in a long time.

Moreover, it proves once again just how in-tune Polanski is with this particular genre, culling techniques and employing-- whether consciously or not-- the same type of imagery, comeuppances, love triangles, mistrust of authority, and startling conclusions that have been the hallmarks of his career from Knife on Water through Chinatown and Frantic.

Again water serves as major visual piece to the psychological puzzle, which has been woven throughout his oeuvre since the beginning. And when you blend the image and connotations of water along with themes of deception, sins of the past, and questions surrounding just who we’re letting into our little worlds, Ghost Writer begins echoing Frantic, Chinatown, Death and the Maiden and others from Polanski’s unique twist on the genre.

To this end, it’s certainly tempting to study the overlaps in his work, whether it's in his acknowledged fondness for Hitchcock and Chandler (which led to the film) or the definite autobiographical elements including a sense of Shangri-la in reverse, the transient nature of luck, persecution, accusation, and death that are blended together to masterful effect in Ghost.

While admittedly it does struggle a bit in the pacing of the work, which you can attribute to the fact that it’s hard to get a handle on the characters, luckily our hero is engaging because of what McGregor naturally brings to the role personality-wise as opposed playing the ghost in the aloof manner one would assume from the profession and original title of The Ghost.

Furthermore the film more than makes up for its shortcomings of a padded second act via some wicked surprises, which is most evident in another one of Polanski’s instantly classic endings that you could line up side-by-side with at least three of his others in terms of similarity and cinematic effectiveness.

One of the best twist-filled mysteries for grown ups since Transsiberian and the foreign film Tell No One, The Ghost Writer is also quite timely as an overt George W. Bush/Tony Blair allegory, based on author Robert Harris’ 2008 “Thriller of the Year” best-selling novel, keeping political minds stimulated almost as much as film buffs’ as the type of purely Polanski film that begs to be seen twice.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Tiger's Tail (2006)

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"When I was a child in the London blitz, a blockbuster was a massive bomb that could knock out a neighbourhood. The blockbuster movie, now utterly dominant and crushing better films, is set to destroy the Hollywood studios; the monster is turning on its makers. The [studio-built] blockbuster now costs so much to make and market that no one can afford them any more.

“Those of us excluded from this elite, or lacking the stomach for film-making of this order, are increasingly relegated to the mean streets of the independent film, the arthouse ghetto of low budgets and deferred fees. The independent film has to squeeze into margins and corners not occupied by the bullying blockbusters.

“Somehow we stay alive, we limp along as we wait for the blockbuster to reach critical mass and implode. In the rubble and ruins of Hollywood, we will emerge to baffle and bemuse that pre-programmed audience.”

-- Five Time Oscar-Nominated Writer/Director
John Boorman
in The Guardian’s “That's all, folks.”

Yet throughout his impressive career, filmmaker John Boorman has proven time and time again that he isn’t going to be content to wait until the demise of blockbusters to baffle and bemuse audiences. In fact, it’s been his unique and singular cinematic modus operandi that he’s employed from the start which is on display in such acclaimed works as the influential Point Blank, the unforgettable Deliverance and the autobiographical Hope and Glory along with so many others.

Bold and uncompromising, additionally Boorman is no stranger to tackling literary source material nor managing to find an intellectual approach to incorporate political, ethical, and humanistic themes in his varied works either in an overt context with a movie like Beyond Rangoon or subtly via his most recent release to DVD in MGM’s The Tiger’s Tail.

While obviously Boorman draws the most inspiration from the Mark Twain classic The Prince and the Pauper as a starting point for a film about doubles and doppelgangers in Dublin, he layers his contemporary morality tale with sociological issues. Furthermore and impressively managing to somehow wrap all of it up in a less than two hour running time, he captivates audiences by giving The Tiger’s Tail an intriguing Hitchockian spin a la Vertigo by lacing the work with elements of a thriller in a first rate screenplay.

In Bruges Golden Globe nominee Brendan Gleeson takes on two complicated roles in the film which first introduces us to the man as the successful capitalist Liam O’Leary who, stuck in horrific Dublin traffic on the eve he is to receive an award for his business endeavors is shocked to his core when a man who could be his identical twin starts cleaning his windshield.

Playing off the experience by simply citing stress, he jokes to a friend that when you see your double, “it means you’re gonna die,” but when Liam finds himself face-to-face with the double several more times, his wife Jane (Kim Cattrall) and son Connor worry that Liam has begun losing his grip on reality. And sure enough when the double begins interfering in his life to the point of assuming the real Liam’s identity and managing to fool Jane and Connor, Liam embarks on a search for answers.

Throughout the work, the ideas of a stolen identity, the problems of health care, church scandals, parents disinterested in their children, and the widening gap between the classes are present from the start and become very apparent when the real Liam is forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at an institution. Still Boorman keeps us focused on the plot first and foremost by wisely keeps things moving at a tiger-like fast and emotionally heightened pace that avoids Tiger’s Tail from becoming too much of a draining political message movie.

However, from a narrative standpoint, there are a few missteps along the way that threaten to derail us from Liam's plight. The detractors include an abrupt ending that felt like it wasn’t earned from a sympathetic standpoint involving Liam’s relationship with his son as well as a brief but disturbing assault sequence on Jane by Liam’s double. For, similar to old films where too many dames would plead “no” until melting into yes, this incident involving Jane turns what began as outright rape into a dubious plot line for Jane to genuinely fall in love with the double instead. However, it’s possible that perhaps both of these problems that affect the work may have been solved in scenes that had been left on the cutting room floor or were removed from the screenplay to necessitate a faster and more budget friendly shoot.

And while Gleeson is given quite a showcase as he easily overpowers some of the ensemble including the talented Cattrall who falls in and out of accent every so often, nonetheless the underrated Tiger’s Tail is a thought provoking film that’s well worth chasing down. While the surprisingly philosophical conclusion would have no doubt been rejected within the blockbuster system that would've instead insisted the story had cashed in on the concept of revenge, you have to applaud Boorman’s decision to stay true to his beliefs as he baffles and bemuses with an existential new work.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

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Samantha Who? Season 1

Sex and the City: The Movie


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Sex and the City

Director:
Michael Patrick King

The poster says it all—a glamour shot of a contemplative, wised-up, possibly battle scarred Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) against a night background. She’s come a long way from the tutu, wandering through the sunlit streets in a toss between a ballerina’s grace and a tigress on the prowl. That was until cynical reality hit her in the form of a splashed puddle from a bus in the beginning of the television show’s timeless credit sequence that set up the sophisticated, randy, melancholy, witty and beloved award winning HBO series for its astronomically successful six season run. Yet in transferring the tale of single former love and sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends to the big screen, it’s evident fairly early on that the focus has changed considerably.

While it was always fixated on Carrie, there was never a shortage of compelling plots concerning the rest of the Manhattan quartet to elevate the series into a multilayered tapestry of humor, intellectuality and poignant truths. However, that’s quickly forgotten on the big screen as Carrie becomes not only the predictable leading lady but her cohorts are given so little to work with that they become as uninspired and clichéd as countless best friends in the romantic comedy genre, just there to offer a shoulder to cry on, try and deliver a well-timed joke, but never forget their place to stand in the background like a bridesmaid, never upstaging the bride on her big day.

Thus it’s only fitting that the film’s bride-like character becomes a bride as we check in with Carrie, five years after she went to Paris and got accidentally slapped by Petrovsky before the dashing, comical Big (Chris Noth) showed up, sold the key line, “I’m clocking this foreigner,” until Carrie tripped him in the hallway and they ended up falling on the floor and for one another (AGAIN) in a terrific series finale that’s quickly become one of the shows’ most memorable episodes. Now happily committed to Big whom we learn is really named John James Preston (after King’s favorite director Preston Sturges, creator of unforgettable comedies and also intriguingly the first kiss-proof lipstick which is no doubt a SATC staple), Carrie and the wealthy playboy decide unceremoniously in a nearly business mindset to wed before moving into their own corner of “real estate heaven,” namely, a breathtaking penthouse where the view is only outdone by the jaw-dropping, flatteringly lit, and highly organized racquetball court sized walk-in closet.

Obviously, Manolo Blahnik loving Carrie seems less intrigued by the prospect of a ring than the closet and before long, her wealthy, prim dark haired Grace Kelly like princess friend Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is lending Carrie her best gay friend Anthony (Mario Cantone) to plan the big day. While Charlotte is just as we left her, living a life of uneventful domestic bliss married to the good-natured Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler) complete with adorable puppies and a cute adopted Chinese daughter who, along with Harry and the puppies seem merely decorative, the tough-as-nails, heart attack waiting to happen, successful law film partner Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is stretching herself too thin in her married life to her own puppy dog husband Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) and son. When a predictable wrench is thrown into her marriage after the unhappily ignored Steve acts out on his dissatisfaction, Miranda is even less thrilled than we’d expect to be involved with Carrie’s nuptials but it’s Carrie’s maid of honor, the show’s saucy vixen cougar Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) who coupled with countless frogs until she met her far younger, wart free, golden boy prince Smith (the dishy Jason Lewis), who we’re most stunned to see. Now living a largely hapless existence as a miserable stay-at-home manager to her actor lover in Los Angeles, Samantha is tirelessly devoted to her man yet finds her old urges haven’t disappeared with age when she begins obsessing about her lothario manwhore neighbor.

Rushing off to New York every chance she gets, Samantha and the girls pick up where they left off, yet instead of the fast-paced screwball laughs to which we’d grown accustomed, the sour tone of the Sex and the City movie is shockingly melancholic and while they’ve necessarily replaced the sex and single scene obsession of the show given their relationship status and maturity, by filling an exhaustive 145 minutes with endless fashion shows and product placements and using an uninspired Cinderella theme in lieu of the rampant feminism, it’s a more materialistic and less soulful version of Sex than one could possibly imagine. And even when writer/director Michael Patrick King tries to pen the required daring one-liner or raunchy hook-up, the execution feels sexless, clinical, cool and overwhelmingly tired, making me think that if the script itself had been a man, none of the foursome would have let him get past the first date.

With Carrie’s trio relegated to backup singers as Charlotte is prone to shrieking hysteria in virtually every scene, Miranda has grown even less cheerful, and Samantha is in desperate need of a hug, it pales in comparison to the six inventive seasons of the series. Although it was always a chicken soup show, making one feel better after a horrible date, breakup, or day at the office, and as a woman, I’m infinitely grateful for not only its existence but also that Hollywood actually released a film starring four women over the age of forty, in addition to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha, SATC’s dedicated fans deserve something much richer, vital and rewarding than what in the end feels about as deep as one of the latest new age self-help books such as The Secret, that hilariously Samantha Jones throws into the sand. Too bad it couldn’t have been the script! Needless to say, skip this and go back to your bookshelves to dust off the old DVD box sets.