Cinefile

Roman Polanski is one of the last living masters of filmmaking. From the unmatched vice on paranoia in his Rosemary’s Baby to the controlled sense of somberness in his The Pianist, Polanski has always championed character over cinematic spectacle. His films let the players on the screen dazzle the audience; they’re the movie’s best special effect. Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the year’s very best films and again puts Polanski in top form. The very fact that a key central character in the film is basically excommunicated from his country, runs a potent parallel track to Polanski’s own strained relationship with the United States—a place where he had developed a strong filmography of work. But to let Polanski’s personal history oversensuate the strong piece of cinema that is The Ghost Writer would be a disservice to the film. Rather, the parallelism exists on a deeper plane of resonance and it should only be studied after watching the film.

Ewan McGregor resurfaces here from a string of forgetful endeavors—Deception, Angels & Demons, Amelia—as the lead character (simply credited as “The Ghost”) in Polanski’s tapestry of the sinister. McGregor’s character gets by ghost writing for fluff content until the day he is enlisted to take on the autobiographical memoirs of Britain’s former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan, perfect in the role). It’s with these early scenes that Polanski begins to evoke Hitchcock: from the camera’s meticulous frame composition during McGregor’s visit to the publisher’s office (James Belushi actually comes across as a possible brute force here)  to an abrupt burst of street violence involving a motorist, the fingerprint of the “master of suspense” is definitely stamped on Polanski’s work here. In other words, this is movie heaven.

A majority of the film takes place in Lang’s cold-looking marble beach house on a secluded, cloudy island. This is key; because of the confined physical terrain, Polanski is able to pit his hero (McGregor) in very tangible situations of peril. Whether he’s riding his bicycle through the beach sand on a rainy, late afternoon or driving down to his seedy motel or perusing the local ferry boat docks, the film delivers an unusual sense of geography within the plot. This elevates the notion of any immediate threat. Although nothing in The Ghost Writer resembles the usual commercial thriller, it has all the familiar elements—a possible villain lurking within the troupe, a corpse discovered on a beach, etc.—but Polanski ingeniously weaves these elements together to deliver more sophisticated jolts.

The supporting cast is full of strong—and some suprising—turns. Tom Wilkinson continues to have great screen presence as Paul Emmett, a former professor of Lang’s who may or may not be telling the whole truth (wink wink). It’s good to see Oscar winner Timothy Hutton and Kim Cattrall out of their serial TV environments. Eli Wallach has an especially engaging scene with McGregor concerning the whereabouts of said beach corpse.

But in the end, this is the Roman Polanski show—with the uber nod toward Hitchcock, of course. Polanski directs the hell out of this picture. Be sure to pay special close attention to two soon-to-be-relished single shots that come at the film’s end. One involves a tight shot on a folded note being passed through a crowd of individuals. The other is the last scene, a wide static shot of a London street. Watch each scene. Then imagine the action of each scene handled by a different director. Chances are they would lack the riskiness these sections breathe on. But that’s what makes Polanski great. He can lure you in—literally—and then leave your eyes lingering on the screen, wanting to watch it all over again.

DVD Special Features:

Outside of the exceptional movie, the disc even has cool featurettes. An Interview with Roman Polanski is useful viewing but I found the featurette The Ghost Writer: Fiction or Reality? a little more engaging, not so much for author Robert Harris’ journey from page to screen but because the b-roll footage is of Polanski on set—and he’s totally in his element. The Cast of The Ghost Writer has its fair share of thesps saying how great the other one is but they all make clear what drew them toward the project in the first place: story. Gotta love that.