‘Ghost Writer’: Sophisticated, stylish thriller from Polanski
Published 1:46 pm Thursday, February 25, 2010
Roman Polanski’s terrific new thriller “The Ghost Writer” deftly reminds us what has long made the director so effective, in movies like “Repulsion” (1965), “Rosemary’s Baby” (1969) and “Chinatown” (1974): His singular knack for taking pulp and transforming it into tense, paranoid drama.
Based on a 2007 Robert Harris novel, the story follows a writer known only as The Ghost (Ewan McGregor) who is hired to rewrite the political memoirs of the former British prime minister (a nicely shifty Pierce Brosnan). The previous ghost writer committed suicide — or so it was said — on a Cape Cod ferry boat.
A more cautious man might walk away from the scenario, which sounds too much good to be true — a quarter-million dollars for just four weeks of work. But we’re deep in Polanski territory, a world where good people are inexorably drawn into nightmarish circumstances. The Ghost quickly hops a plane to Massachusetts, where the prime minister is holed up.
“The Ghost Writer” was filmed before the director’s most recent spate of legal troubles (though editing was reportedly completed at the Swiss chalet where he is currently under house arrest).
Like many of Polanski’s pictures, most notoriously his baroque and bloody “Macbeth” (1971), his first film after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the Charles Manson gang, this new effort invites an autobiographical scrutiny that Polanski may or may not have intended.
As The Ghost arrives as the sterile, modernist mansion, and finds himself locked in a room with the manuscript — which is apparently so explosive that it is kept in a safe — the film turns into a fascinating meditation on the notion of exile.
The prime minister, it turns out, is about to come under investigation by the Hague for possible war crimes: It’s alleged that he arranged for the kidnapping of four British citizens and then allowed them to be waterboarded by the CIA.
If he returns to England, he might be arrested. The Ghost is supposed to be pinning him down for extensive interviews. But he finds his attentions diverted, first by the politician’s steely wife (Olivia Williams) and then by his discovery of an old photograph of a well-known university professor (Jim Broadbent), who is said to have connections to the CIA.
“The Ghost Writer” doesn’t quite have the emotional punch of Polanski’s most paranoid classics — perhaps because the character of The Ghost remains a little too vaguely defined.
That said, the movie burns with so much style and sophisticated technique that you’ll be more than willing to forgive this shortcoming.
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
