Polanski’s Ghost Writer

By Santa Monica reporter Dan Cohen

“The Ghost Writer,” adapted by Roland Harris from his novel, “The Ghost,” and directed by the 76 year old Roman Polanski, is intelligent, smartly acted and handsomely shot. While it doesn’t have the stylistic élan of the director’s finest works – “Chinatown,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Tess,” (among others,); the knowing direction and visual flourishes keep reminding us a master craftsman is in charge.  And yet at the end, the movie isn’t as effective as we’d like it to be.

There’s no way to talk about this movie without some mention of Polanski’s topsy-turvy career.  There’s the temptation to relegate him to the past, say the 70s, when more attention was on his work than his court case. And it’s true that his most trenchant essays on the tortured psyche came in that middle period, before his wife was murdered in one of the most bizarre spectacles of the century. But every once in a while he’s re-established his credentials; in 1994 with a successful adaptation of the dark play “Death and the Maiden,” and then in 2002 with the multi award winning, “The Pianist.”  It’s just that “The Ghost Writer,” doesn’t measure up to his best work.

The set up generates a fair amount of interest.  Taking direction from current political scandals, it takes a fictional swipe at the relationship between George Bush and his British ally, Tony Blair.  And while we’ve seen this played out on the world stage, the movie tries to examine the murkier aspects of what’s on record from a different angle.

A middling writer, (Ewan McGregor) is hired to help a recently retired Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan,) complete his autobiography after his “ghost writer” washes up on a beach, assumed to be a suicide.  The new hire, saddled with a nearly impossible deadline, is rapidly dispatched to a beachside compound where Adam Lang and his staff have been ensconced get the book done.

At exactly the moment McGergor accepts the assignment, a former colleague accuses Lang of having facilitated the torture of several suspected terrorists. The writer quickly realizes that the book could turn out to be more than predictably self aggrandizing, if he can just get his subject to talk. And, at first, Lang seems wiling.   But as he becomes enmeshed in a growing scandal that brings the threat of criminal charges, the work slows down.  While Lang, his wife, and staff struggle to stave off the press and other hostiles, the writer, mission interrupted, the “ghost” becomes drawn into the circumstances surrounding the former ghost writer’s demise.

McGregor is credible as a resourceful journeyman suddenly immersed in a political intrigue several levels beyond his pay grade.  Brosnan, by now the most seasoned of pros, deploys a host of idiosyncrasies to realize the mercurial Lang.   Olivia Williams, as Lang’s  troubled wife, takes a role constructed from the kind of conventions we recognize the moment she’s introduced, and breathes a bracing if icy life into it.  She’s the real surprise here.

Underused, at least in the US, Williams has the kind of face that transforms from mildly troubled to deeply ravaged with the slightest gesture.  Even though her character is shortchanged in terms of deveopment, sometimes to the point where her mood changes feel improvised, the actress rivets our attention in every scene.

The script is studded with low key wit. And it wastes no time getting started.  But before we get to the real problem a profusion of details, mainly delivered through dialogue, relegate suspense to the back burner.  Miss a few lines and you’re struggling to keep up.  And this is a problem that plagues the entire movie.

It isn’t that the writing isn’t good; it’s that the nature of the material, which originated in a different form, is better served by a leisurely pace.  As a movie, “Ghost Writer” is never less than skillful; it’s just too dense to get really juiced.

Then there’s the issue of motivation. McGregor ‘s first telling clue that all is not well, comes when he goes through the dead writers stuff and finds something that reveals an inconsistency in Lang’s story.  A photo leads him to former associates, which, in turn, brings on the bad guys we know are waiting in the wings.  You’d think at this point our hero would at least smell the trouble brewing, but he doesn’t. Ok, we’ll let that slide because we know he has to put himself in jeopardy in order for the story to continue. But there’s more.

Threatening weather clues us that evil lurks the first time McGregor ventures beyond the gaze of the PM’s security guards.  But we don’t know why or who he’s up against until more than an hour into the picture, again an impediment to the creation of real suspense. The problem is –  we don’t know the real problem.

Then there’s the surprise that comes in the last few minutes, a revelation that while cleverly conceived, is not very revealing.  More than that, it really doesn’t impact most of what we’ve already seen.

“The Ghost Writer” arrives on the heels of two other suspense driven features; “Green Zone,” and “The Crazies,” which is a horror movie, although many of the same elements of filmmaking are present.

The elements in “Green Zone,” are so predictable that we’re ahead of the story at the most critical junctures.  As it follows an inevitable glide path there are simply not enough diversions to keep us from becoming complacent. “Ghost Writers’” problem is exactly the opposite; we’re too much in the dark. As the plot becomes deeper and denser it defies our participation, which keeps us at arms’ length. We’re thankful when the proceedings are goosed by a well mounted chase or a distracting bit of sex, but we’re still iced out of real involvement.

“The Crazies” is little more than a formulaic horror thriller, but it studies its well travelled landscape with several  unexpected speed bumps, and as a result is much more successful in keeping us engaged. We know right from the start that the small town is under siege, but a half dozen inspired set pieces, all of which take place within the movie’s established boundaries, give it a fresh veneer.  If you’re a fan of the genre, you come away from it satisfied.

It doesn’t seem fair when films with serious aspirations are shown up by their poorer relatives, who have nothing on their minds but cheap thrills.  But when writers and directors defy  the rules of suspense so well articulated by the old masters; Hitchcock, Carol Reed, (“The Third Man”)  Don Seigel, (the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Dirty Harry,”)  they do so at their peril.