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As in Polanski’s other Thriller, “Frantic”, “The Ghost Writer” is a homage to the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, many of the totals, the quirky secondary characters and the dead pan humor are a few of the countless references to Hitch. Would it be for direction only, the great pace of the movie, the grayish undertone of the scenery, the Hermann-esque Soundtrack, this movie would earn a straight 5. However, I found the story did not hit the right balance between the moments of intimate suspense featuring McGregor figuring out what is going on and the political intrigue(s) which hover over the whole story. It is the latter where the film truly suffers, the political drivel is very uninteresting and unengaging as well as unnecessary entangled and complicated. It might be interesting to people who get all the Tony Blair references but only a few of us are students of politics. I also felt that the performances by Brosnan and Williams ultimately suffered from the restrictions laid upon them by the face that they are portraying alter egos of living counterparts, rendering the performances wooden and slightly plastered. Ewan McGregor is outstanding, as usual and he makes this film work after all.

Overall, one half of the movie was amazing, but the other drags it down and we cannot ignore that. Polanski’s hand in this is golden like the Midas’ Touch but the screenplay (or the novel by Harris, it may be either) is a bad egg in the nest of Polanski’s genius.

Still worth your time.

The film would be 1 1/2 stars if only for the story, but the direction and cinematography as well as McGregor improve it.

Film de bonne qualité, mais rien d’extraordinaire non plus. The Ghost Writer possède d’énormes atouts, mais aussi quelques faiblesses qui gâchent réellement l’importance qu’aurait pu prendre ce film.
L’oeuvre débute idéalement, Polanski nous plonge directement au coeur du sujet. D’un point de vue du scénario, y a vraiment du bon. Les allusions à l’ancien Premier-Ministre Tony Blair sont grosses comme des maisons. Il est vrai que l’oeuvre critique les prises de positions sur l’Irak, le Moyen-Orient, etc. C’est intéressant aussi ce sentiment d’être toujours enfermé et épié. On est sur une île, mais on a l’impression d’avoir plus de liberté dans une prison. Ca a un côté assez angoissant.
Toutefois, je trouve que le film prêche dans des moments pareils. Pas l’impression d’avancer dans le récit, des éléments du scénario dont on se demande s’ils ont une réelle nécessité (sa liaison avec la femme de Lang par exemple) alors que le début s’annonçait plutôt prometteur.
J’ai par contre à nouveau accroché sur la fin avec une dernière scène assez mémorable. Mais comme je l’ai dit, je trouve vraiment que l’oeuvre prêche au milieu, c’est assez mollasson, on n’a l’impression que ça n’avance jamais. Et le scénario est assez prévisible dans les grandes lignes. Ok, la scène finale est impressionnante, mais il semblait impossible de ne pas voir le film se terminer autrement. De plus, le film multiplie trop souvent les pistes.
Côté casting, il faut avouer que c’est la grande classe. McGregor est parfait. Brosnan se fait certes rare, mais est très bon aussi. Bref, bien plaisant de ce côté.
La mise en scène est correcte avec une excellente ambiance instaurée et une photographie superbe. Toutefois, ça manque parfois de quelque chose en plus.
Mais ne crachons pas dans la soupe, ce Polanski est bien meilleur que Le pianiste par exemple. Une oeuvre sympathique dont il ne manque pas grand chose pour en faire quelque chose de plus grand justement.

Polanski has long had a passion for books, All of them Witches in Rosemary’s Baby and The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows in The Ninth Gate, which doesn’t make it surprising that he chooses to frame his story about a recently “retired” prime minister with a book. In this case, it is Adam Lang’s autobiography, which like Polanski’s previous books holds cryptic keys to this political thriller.

Ewan McGregor is a ghostwriter who has been called in to clean up Adam Lang’s autobiography, after a previous ghostwriter was found washed up on a deserted beach of an island off the coast of New York. The movie is ostensibly based on Robert Harris, The Ghost, but has been honed to razor sharp perfection by Polanski. You probably won’t recognize the setting unless you are from Rømø, Denmark, as much of this movie was filmed in Germany and Denmark, since Polanski obviously didn’t have free access to the United States. The “ghost” is never mentioned by name in this film and essentially serves as the viewer’s eyes and ears in ferreting out Lang’s story, with various false turns and other surprises along the way that keep you guessing throughout the movie.

Adam Lang is a thinly veiled Tony Blair, but rather than dwell too much on troubled political history of poor Tony, Polanski opts for a number of intriguing cinematic references including The Manchurian Candidate. The political climate recreated in this movie serves more as a distraction to the much more sinister underlying story. Eli Wallach makes a virtually unrecognizable cameo when the “ghost” gets caught in the rain on his way to the spot where the previous body had washed up. One of many foreboding scenes which Polanski deftly handles.

I was most impressed by how much Polanski was able to draw out of what seemed to be a rather banal cast. Pierce Brosnan was pitch perfect as Adam Lang. Ewan McGregor was at his “ingénue best,” as Manohla Dargis notes in her review for the New York Times. Olivia Williams was virtually unrecognizable as Lang’s disgruntled wife. Even James Belushi, who I can’t stand, does a pretty good impersonation of Rod Steiger in his brief scene at the beginning of the movie.

It is wonderful to see that Roman hasn’t lost his touch after all these years. You get the sense that he is not only playing with the audience, as he meticulously lays out his story, but also seems to be teasing Britain and the United States, which have become his nemeses since he fled the US in 1978 after being accused of raping a teenage girl. Like the “ghost” who eventually finds out much more than he should about Adam Lang’s life, you get the sense the US, which so ardently pressed for Polanski’s extardition while he was under house arrest in Switzerland, might think Polanski knows more than he should about the relationship between Blair and Bush. There are a number of references, such as the “Hatherton” private plane Lang flies around in, which obviously alludes to Haliburton, but Polanski leaves it up to the viewer to tie together these loose bits of manuscript, content to let the film come to its all too fitting end.

“The Ghost Writer” is the work of a true master. It is Roman Polanski’s eighteenth film as a director, and it proves—if it needed further proving—that at age 77, he just as brilliant a filmmaker as he ever was. He has made one of his best films to date, a taut, pulse-pounding political thriller of Hitchcockian proportions that also contains echoes of his own films, particularly “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”

Ewan McGregor plays a nameless man whose past is left a mystery. He is hired by a publisher to ghost write ex-British Prime Minister Adam Lang’s (Pierce Brosnan) memoirs. The previous ghost, a long time aid to Lang, was found dead, washed up along the beach near Lang’s beach house in Martha’s Vineyard, his car still on the crossing ferry. It is assumed that he was either drowned accidentally or committed suicide, but Polanski lets us know in more ways than one that it will probably not be that simple. The sense of foreboding that the director creates forms its grip on us from the opening shot, and never lets go for a second.

Lang’s beach house is a fortress of secrets surrounded by stormy, grey skies that constantly threaten to shed rain at any moment. The new ghost arrives and is welcomed by Lang’s aid, Amelia (Kim Cattrall), who is also his mistress. This is no secret to Lang’s wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), a lonely but tough woman who is deeply detached from her husband.

Just as the new ghost arrives, Lang who comes under severe political attack over his loyalties to American foreign activities, including rendition and other war crimes. This leaves the ghost wondering gravely what he has gotten himself into, and if his predecessor’s death was really just an accident, or something more sinister. Polanski gives us no reason to believe otherwise, and as the ghost becomes immersed in Lang’s world of secrets, lies, deceit and CIA cover-ups, he realizes that his two-week deadline to finish Lang’s memoirs is the very least of his concerns.

What is truly stunning about this film, aside from Polanski’s sharp and menacing direction, is the amount of information that is retained from the audience. Even as the ghost unpeels the layers Lang’s past, and slowly begins to understand what is going on, we are never quite certain about everything. In many cases in a film like this, the pieces are all there and it is our job and the protagonist’s job to connect them. In “The Ghost Writer,” I think that Polanski and co-writer Robert Harris have deliberately chosen to withhold some pieces of the puzzle in order to generate the kind of doubt and anticipation that we experience throughout this film.

McGregor gives an excellent central performance as the new ghost trying to put together the events taking place, and his scenes with Williams, some of the more seemingly ambiguous scenes in the film, are wonderfully acted. This is also some of the best work that Brosnan has ever done, as the ex-PM who is attempting to both save his reputation and process his memoirs, while carefully trying to keep the truth submerged beneath what the people want to hear. He has only a few major scenes, but manages to communicate a lot in them.

Polanski also plays with modern technology, namely the GPS system, which is used in one brilliant scene where the ghost’s predecessor communicates vital information to him from beyond the grave. In another scene, the ghost talks to an old man (Eli Wallach) who says that the current shouldn’t have washed the former ghost up along the beach where it did, and that a key witness to it is in a coma. There is also an ingenious moment toward the end involving the passing of a note that keenly evokes Hitchcock. These kinds of moments, which occur frequently through the film—in nearly every scene, in fact—allow the tension to build and build, until I could actually feel my heart racing.

The setting of the film also adds to the growing anticipation, and the ominous tone of the film, as the beach house where the ghost spends most of his time is cut off from the mainland. It is a hazy, isolated, drizzly place where bad things are almost certainly bound to happen. “The Ghost Writer” is one of the most intensely crafted thrillers in recent years, as it blends classic Hitchcock themes with modern political allusions, while Polanski, I think, also manages to slip in some very personal incite into his own controversial situation with the law. It all adds up to a masterwork of the genre that perhaps offers us more questions than answers by the end, but that is all the more reason to watch it again.

A writer (Played by the competent and easy to watch Ewen McGregor) is hired to help write the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang. But things aren’t as simple as all that when McGregor starts to think something fishy is going on with the “death” of Lang’s former “Ghost Writer”.

Perhaps it’s the fault of the film’s advertising and my own mind that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I’d hoped. I’d been expecting a suspenseful film, but that’s not exactly what I got. In fact I hardly understood what was going on or why what was going on was of any importance.

Throwing the story aside (which bordered on boring in parts) there’s quite a bit to enjoy. For starters the setting and visuals are really lovely! I’m a sucker for rainy weather in films and its here by the bucket load. (Pun largely intended!)

I was pleasantly surprised by Pierce Brosnan’s performance which was mostly very good. Also I’m hearing some hate for Kim Cattrall in this film… to be honest I never gave her a thought. She didn’t give a bad performance, or a stand-out one. So no need to be hatin’.

Olivia Williams who plays Adam Lang’s wife gives a nice performance but it’s the scene with Tom Wilkinson that got me most excited, I’d say! I’ve admired the man for a while now but he’s usually playing a similar character. This isn’t too much of a branch-off for him, though enough to feel like a fresh performance and one I highly enjoyed watching! Especially in a film which was starting to lose my interest.

Alexandre Desplat scored the film and I read a comment from someone about his score saying it reminded them of “Philip Glass and Bernard Herrmann”. This is a very good comparison I must say. It’s a scrumptious score and one that reminded me a bit of “Cul-de-sac”, Polanski’s film from 1966. Great stuff!

Overall the film is a mixed bag, but I’ll be keen to rewatch it in the future.

3.5/5 stars

Title: The Ghost Writer
Year: 2010
Country: Germany, French, Britain
Language: English
Genre: Mystery
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski,
Cast:
Ewan McGregor
Pierce Bronsnan
Olivia Williams
Kim Cattrall
Tom Wilkinson
James Belushi
Timothy Hutton
Eli Wallach
Jon Bernthal
Rating: 8/10

It is hard to believe Roman Polanski is so trustworthy to blow my mind with his new film (under the current of his tedious rape case and jail time), THE GHOST WRITER has just swept 5 awards in 2010 European Film Awards (including BEST FILM, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST ACTOR, BEST SCRIPT), would become another THE PIANIST ? Anything could happen, right?

I feel extremely shameful to call myself a devotee of Mr. Polanski as I have not seen CHINA TOWN or TESS, although I thoroughly enjoy ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) and THE PIANIST. However, his own biography could be much more colorful and soon will be the best time for a film of himself, it will be a hit in my opinion.

Let’s talk about the film itself, the heavily political factor around the story is suspicious enough to imply the British Government, which I will let it alone as it doesn’t interest me much (I’m a Chinese, right?), the most fascinating part of the film is the thriller aura which perfectly matches the environment and the identity of our protagonist, from the blindfold visit, the chase on the ferry, an ominous feeling hovering around all the time, not until the final accident, it is impromptu but not unexpected, at least it gives me some relief, the ending satisfies me very well.

The best performance is from Olivia Williams, I still wonder why she has not get any recognition in the award season,
her final scene renders me some wonderful aftertaste. Ewan McGregor is excellent as usual, it’s a pity his role is a little bit plain; Bronsnan, the former 007 gives a nice turn as an actor-born former prime minister, which I call among his best performances all these years.

I do wish this film could go further in the coming Oscar race, a surprising BEST DIRECTOR nomination should be enough for me, maybe a nomination for Olivia, my current no.1 in BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS.

It’s a familiar setup at the movies: a man accepts a job in a secluded locale where his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, and slowly realizes that he’s getting more than he bargained for. The man in this case is a nameless writer (Ewan McGregor), who’s brought in to spruce up the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a charismatic ex-Prime Minister of the UK who may have some damaging secrets. What Lang’s memoir needs, McGregor insists, is heart: warmth, intimacy, sentimentality, personal details that could make Lang accessible to every reader. It’s an appropriate touch. After all, “heart” is something that McGregor’s character appears to do just fine without. The film, very explicitly, is about this paradox: a political landscape where public personalities are artificial constructs, and where their emotional reactions—far from being genuine and spontaneous—go through a series of re-writes.

It’s perhaps fitting, then, that the film moves along from plot point to plot point with a kind of dour speed, as if it knows better—for this yarn—than to try spending too long on the human element. This is if nothing else an almost coldly efficient film: a functional, perfectly-cast jigsaw puzzle of a thriller. The execution, however, doesn’t live up to the themes. Particularly in the second half, the suspense is dissipated by a sense of obviousness that turns increasingly to silliness in the final revelations.

Still, it’s worth the viewing. Polanski knows how to shoot a scene, the visual palette is beautiful and icy, and it’s interesting to see the “post-9/11 paranoia thriller” sub-genre be handled from a distinctly (and angrily) European point of view. Our worst fear is that the US government is in on it—turns out, that’s their worst fear too. Plus, someone in the prop department must have had fun producing a photo of Pierce Brosnan with a 70s haircut.

7 out of 10

“The Ghost Writer” surely is not Roman Polanski’s best film. It can’t even match some of his previous films like “The Pianist” for instance. I don’t know why but I wanted more out of this movie. I had higher expectations. It didn’t satisfy me at all. No, it’s not a shallow film. Far from it. But it could have done better. In a more suspenseful and thrilling way. It’s more like a political drama than a crime thriller. What I most like about this film is the performances. I’ve never thought that Ewan McGregor has such spellbinding charisma to drive the whole movie by himself. Frankly, it has never occurred to me that McGregor is such a fine actor. Now, I just realized that how brilliant he is in this movie. And of course, there’s Olivia Williams. What a remarkable performance by her too. Apart from the performances, what I also like is the bleak cinematography which creates the atmospheric intense environment and a dark mood which makes you think that something fishy has been going on all along from the start even to the ending though what exact suspicious behaviors and actions that the characters have been portraying are not necessarily shown. They could only be guessed. You have to guess what might have happened in the past between the characters. Like I said before, Polanski could have done it better. In my amateurish opinion, that there might be room for improvements. The mediocre plot, perhaps? Anyway, check it out. It’s still a very good film. 4/5

Now THIS is a living, breathing, jaw-dropping political thriller, and more! The long awaited new entry in the “Tenant” series seeds the reasons for the great moral conflict of our times right in the all-important beginnings. There, we see a man disconnected from himself, just like the “democratic citizen”, a shadow led into someone else’s footsteps against his better judgement. He goes into a cold political reality, where no one is himself and duplicity rules. “The Ghost Writer” is as quiet, deceptive and impenetrable as the real world conspiracies behind the scenes and keeps us on our toes all the time. A truly uncompromising, deep and funny tour-de-force show that can only be directed by the great Polanski and his unparalleled mastery of vision, sound… and silence.

Beyond Zabriskie Point

The America of Roman Polanski is a direct continuation of the world of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point. A pattern of barren wastelands, corporate modernist architecture and shiny cars. While the rebellious youth in the 1970 film went to the end of civilisation out of hopelessness, the fate of the mercantile Ghost Writer is less flashy, moodier and even more tragic. The man, who already is a Ghost, takes the ferry over the river Styx, giving the boatsman $40 (return) and goes into the post-apocalyptic afterlife, that is contemporary America imagined by Polanski, who shows us an intense feeling of disconnection, alienation and suspicion.

The Ghost Writer is the triumph of cinema at last! It is the ultimate lesson of how to make a movie bigger than life.It is pointless to try and explain the ingredients of this masterpiece. It’s just that Polanski knows exactly what to do and how to leave us speechless. Everything about the movie seems perfect to me;in fact, I could say that I consider it as the definition of cinema.Watch just for the ending scene to get lost within.Absolutely marvellous!

I remember being so perplexed during the 2008 Oscars because Michael Clayton was up for Best Picture of 2007. To me it was a solid thriller and just didn’t seem to deserve the vaunted status or the company it was keeping. That all changed minutes after the completion of Roman Polanski’s newest The Ghost Writer, however. Through the entire thing I kept recalling how taut Tony Gilroy’s movie was—lean, mean, and edge of your seat thrills in the dangerous world of political intrigue. With all the praise and acclaim being thrown at Polanski’s return to mystery thriller, following the short hiatus of Holocaust drama and Dickens, the thought of it only being very good cannot escape me. The acting is top notch, the story is fascinating and effective in its twists and turns, and some of the visuals are gorgeous—I’d say the final sequence is some of the best cinema in quite some time. Did it have to be over two hours long, though? Shave maybe twenty minutes off, while reworking the pacing, and those moments meant to be tense and exhilarating during the first two-thirds wouldn’t feel so unnecessarily bloated.

Right from the start the action carries on at a good clip. Former Prime Minister Adam Lang has just seen his friend and ghostwriter’s body wash up along the shore of the Massachusetts island where he’s been staying. Desperate to find a replacement that can churn the memoir out quick, the publishers hire Ewan McGregor’s nameless author, someone whose work Lang’s wife has appreciated. You can begin to assume that his predecessor met with an untimely death, especially just as the British government calls out Lang as a war criminal back home, so the fact the new writer is mugged on his departure from earning the job is not surprising. Off he goes to America to meet with his client, finding that the first draft is under lock and key, the location secluded, and the security intrusive. After falling asleep while reading the book, McGregor decides to infuse a little more personality to the tale, doing his best to catch moments of authenticity from the man, only to soon find discrepancies in the story as well as a hidden history to the reasons why this young college actor, without any political aspirations, would want to throw his hat into the ring.

There is a lot going on, so I can understand why Polanski and company chose to extend the runtime and hope that the mystery unraveled in due course. Something is happening between Lang and his publicist/secretary, causing tension with the two and his wife Ruth; the PM’s former friend and minister in Britain, fired some time earlier, has been the one cooperating with the press and exposing Lang’s dealings with suspected terrorists and their extraction to be waterboarded by the Americans; and the new discoveries surrounding the original memoir author’s demise begin to shed a more dangerous light on the proceedings with each step forward. Perhaps the middle third was meant to lull us into a sense of comfort, readying the audience for the breakneck speed in which the secrets start to be illuminated at the end—although even that seems to be off ever so slightly in its pacing. Either way, the extended time it takes to finally force McGregor to go off the reservation for answers keeps you at an arm’s length, always showing how you are watching a story unfold instead of actively being a part of it. And then there are the odd moments of sexual tension between Ruth and Ewan, culminating with a night that I truly can’t come up with any reason for its need to be included.

The story does have a riveting mystery at its center, though, so I must give credit to author Robert Harris and his source material. Answers are slowly revealed through the deliberate peeling back of layers, uncovering assumptions that seem plausible, but may only be a new surface hiding something even more conspiratorial and surprising beneath. An impressive cast helps keep things under wraps until the plot itself necessitates the discoveries; every revelation timed to give just enough information until the next one. McGregor portrays the sensitive intellect well; a man detached from any emotional bonds so that he can craft an entertaining work in the voice of whoever he is pretending to be. His journalistic curiosity leads him to truths he would probably be best to ignore, but his desire to live by finding out what his predecessor did to get killed is stronger. Tom Wilkinson does what he does best as the duplicitous aristocrat standing on the periphery; James Belushi comes out of exile for a fun role as the rough, bottom-line book publisher; and Olivia Williams knocks out the part of the once crucial wife and partner currently relegated to a position by his side solely for the media’s gaze. If there is one fault it is Kim Cattrall. She isn’t bad; I just don’t know why they didn’t cast a real Brit.

But it is Pierce Brosnan that really nails his role of Adam Lang. The full package is on display, from retired politico doing what he can to the kind and approachable subject for McGregor’s research to the hot-tempered fall guy for an incident he vehemently stands behind, but which we know more is involved than what has been told. He overshadows all, rendering even Ewan into an unsure boy, second-guessing all the truths he believes he’s uncovered by Brosnan’s charismatic laugh of reply towards accusations. The film revolves around the character of Lang and how his unknown rise to power occurred, not McGregor’s search for answers. The titular ghostwriter is just out entry point into the intrigue, a vessel for us to relate as the secrets become clear. It is he that we follow through the desolate landscapes and abandoned streets—a starkly quiet visual frame used throughout that allows us to feel a need to turn around and see if we are being followed. Flourishes abound to constantly jolt you out of the malaise caused by the pacing, successfully using tension, such as in a scene of a note being passed through a gathering just as it would through members of Parliament. We know what’s in the note and whom it is for; it’s the reaction that we so yearn for. And with a final scene so wonderfully orchestrated in that ‘less is more’ canon, I can only wish more of what came before heeded those words as well.

The Ghost Writer 8/10

http://jaredmobarakreviews.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/the-ghost-writer/

Polanski is a master of subtlety, grace, and wit. His eye creates breathtaking and beautiful shots. His ear adds a malevolent and demented humor to the score of a film. There is most always something unspeakable, indescribable beneath the surface of a Polanski film. Something unnerving about the tone but never overbearing, or pounding the audience over the head with it. This is certainly true of The Ghost Writer. What I found surprising, not being familiar with the novel on which it is based, was the political statement being made. Humorously portraying certain key figures in the political environment of the last decade. In any other hands, this could never have been done so believably and deftly. All the key performances are on target. And how could they not be. For Polanski knows how to work with actors and guide them in creating such memorable characters. Ewan McGregor certainly fits his role seamlessly as does Olivia Williams. So many could learn from Polanski how a thriller needs to be constructed in order to hold an audience to the very end. The word entertainment means to ‘hold in between’ which is what The Ghost Writer does from beginning to its haunting and inevitable conclusion.

Roman Polanski may have done bad things in his past (I won’t apologize for him), but you can’t deny his craftmenship as a filmmaker. The Ghost Writer is one of, and maybe his last, great masterworks. Even if you can see the twist coming, it holds your attention and never withers. The story is about a successful ghost writer (Ewan McGreggor) who is hired to write the memoirs of the las British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan). As the film progresses, the writer finds out his predecessor may have been murdered for finding out too much on his subject. Ewan McGreggor and, especially, Pierce Brosnan pull out there best performences in years. Even the supporting cast help topline this film through the glass ceiling.Olivia Williams his complex and sexy as Brosnan’s wife. Kim Cattrall is better and more sensual than she ever was on “Sex and the City”. Tom Wilkenson, Jim Belushi, Timothy Hutton, and the great and aged Eli Wallach round out a knockout cast. All help complete a puzzel that get more and more dangerous. Pawel Edelman gives the film’s cinematography a haunted, strange atmosphere to the Maine settings (really filmed in Germany). But, alot of props goes to Alexandre Desplat for his terrifc, Herrmann-isc score. He know how to mix music and sound that isn’t just film music, but is a part of the story. Are there flaws? Yes. The story haults one or two moments. At one point, the fake driving background looks a little cartoonish. But, the film is so good, all is forgiven. My big complant is Summit, trying to sell a R movie as PG-13, horridly dubbs the f-words with cheap overlaps. Come on! We can’t take an f bomb? If you want to discuss the politics and morals of Polanski, rent the documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired”. Know your argument before railing off. The truth may surprise you. But, don’t miss this movie over what the man did in his personal life. Let’s be honest, alot of great artists have done horrible things in there past. But the film is so good not to resist. It recalls Polanski, and the films of Alfred Hitchcock, in their prime. “The Ghost Writer” is tense, political,and eerily relevant. If you skip this, you will must the first important film of the year!

Nearly tight as a drum in its staging and execution, The Ghost Writer is a simple and effective thriller. It feels as clean and pure as the rain constantly streaking the windows of the Martha’s Island estate where much of it is set. Polanski was wise not to muddy the film with needless complications. It doesn’t bog itself down with bloated discourse on international politics or the ethics of torture, but rather sticks to its guns and keeps the story moving and the audience engaged. This same economy of ideas makes the film seem a little scant in hindsight, but it’s wrong to criticize it for what’s missing when what’s present delivers. Polanski’s not interested in keeping the audience ruminating for days; we wants only to control its attention for a few hours.

The cast is superb, which makes Kim Cattrall’s a-pooooling accent all the more unfooortunate. (How do you capture in writing a sound somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and Fran Drescher?) I don’t see why they didn’t cast a Brit, or keep Cattrall and make her character American. Regardless, everyone else is great, especially Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams as the charismatic and cagey powerful couple. To steal an idea from Manohla Dargis, we come to know Brosnan’s character so well thanks to a few small, but key, touches by Polanski and his actor. As a result, Adam Lang’s ticks, tendencies, tantrums and fruit and vegetable smoothies feel real and believable. As Lang’s past becomes clearer (then questioned, then clearer still), the perception we have of him doesn’t change, it deepens.

Hitchcock’s ghost looms large in The Ghost Writer. Any confident suspense film might be called ‘Hitchcockian’, but Polanski’s rhythm, pacing and feel for how and when to dole out information particularly warrant the term. The climax is vintage Hitchcock. The unnamed ghost writer, the ghost, discovers that the key to the secret was in front of him all along. Of course it was. The revelation is followed by a nimble long-take of a note bearing the secret being passed up to its recipient. The secret is both crucially important to the plot and entirely trivial to the film, but the stylish ending feels pitch-perfect. You might not remember The Ghost Writer long after the slick black-and-white end title rolls over the dramatic Bernard Hermann-esque score, but it should have you smiling.