The Ghost Writer

Reviewed by Marc Glassman

The Ghost Writer
Roman Polanski, director and co-script w/Robert Harris, based on Harris’ novel The Ghost
Starring: Ewan McGregor (the Ghost), Pierce Brosnan (Adam Lang), Olivia Williams (Ruth Lang), Kim Cattrall (Amelia Bly), Timothy Hutton (Sidney Kroll), Tom Wilkinson (Paul Emmett), Jim Belushi (John Maddox), Robert Pugh (Richard Rycart)

Last fall, Roman Polanski spent his first few months under house arrest in Switzerland editing his new film The Ghost Writer, which is about a former British Prime Minister who ends up under virtual house arrest in America. How odd is that?

Polanski’s life is tragic and very strange; we all know that. Is that why he won a Silver Bear for Best Director for The Ghost Writer at the recent Berlin Film Festival? Or does the film’s direction deserve such fulsome praise?

The plot is pure hokum. A ghost writer for Adam Lang, a recently retired British Prime Minister, has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, apparently drowned off the island where he was working on Lang’s memoirs. A new ghost is hastily recruited and sent from London to complete the job.

He finds Lang to be distant, charming and, on occasion, quite angry. Lang’s secretary, Amelia Bly, is protective of him and the ghost quickly recognizes that more than business has been transacted between them. If the ghost realizes that set-up, so too does Lang’s wife Ruth, who is attractive and extremely intelligent.

Soon after his arrival, the ghost’s time with the ex-P.M. is thrown off by accusations that Lang was involved with war crimes, allowing the illegal detainment and torture of Pakistani-born British citizens, who might have been supporters of the Taliban. As demonstrators and the media surround Lang’s New England island home, it feels more and more that he is already under arrest.

Desperate, Lang flies to Washington, where the President continues to support him. While Lang’s away, the ghost is free to investigate the death of his predecessor and to get to know the P.M.’s wife much, much better. Soon conspiracy theories surrounding the CIA are playing in the ghost’s mind as stranger, potentially more dangerous events begin to plague him.

As one might expect, this leads to a series of explosive scenes leading up to a somewhat surprising denouement. After all, The Ghost Writer is a thriller.

But there’s more to the story and to Polanski’s direction than the mere mechanical unfolding of a complex suspense plot. First off, Lang is clearly intended to be Tony Blair, the P.M., whom Harris and many Brits first adored, but latterly despised. Second, and more importantly, Polanski is allowed to develop the film in true auteur style, injecting many characteristic touches. Once again, as in many of his films, there are strange servants who can barely speak English and odd scenes in deserted hotels and restaurants. Sex rears its head throughout—a Polanski motif in life as well as art.

More to the point, The Ghost Writer appears to be a black comic take not just on Blair but on the whole Hollywood system. The idea of a ghost—a creature of ability who eschews his own personality—is clearly fascinating to a director whose individuality is highly prized. From time to time, Polanski has worked within the conventional system, most notably with Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby. What a strange joke, then, for him to make an even more resolutely conventional film independently—and then to dwell on the whole question of freedom throughout the story.

Despite some complicated subtexts, though, The Ghost Writer is mainly a well-made thriller. With a fine performance by Ewan McGregor in the lead and a very good one by Olivia Williams as Ruth Lang, the picture is clearly entertaining. But did it deserve a prize in Berlin? I doubt if it would have been under consideration, let alone win, if the director’s name hadn’t been Roman Polanski.

See the film if you like Polanski or thrillers. But don’t expect a masterpiece.