Film Review By Michael Phillips,

Tribune Newspapers Critic



Plot isn't everything, unless you're "Shutter Island." On the other hand, T.S. Eliot was right: Narrative does "satisfy one habit of the reader, to keep his mind diverted and quiet while the poem (or the film) does its work upon him: much as the imaginary burglar is always provided with a bit of nice meat for the house-dog."

The wittily sinister new film from Roman Polanski asserts Eliot's point. Narratively we know "The Ghost Writer's" score. But director and co-writer Polanski turns a conventional conspiracy thriller into a triumph of tone, ensemble playing and atmospheric menace.

The tale itself is both topical and timelessly paranoid in its outlook. The topical bits belong mostly to novelist Robert Harris, who adapted his 2007 book "The Ghost" with Polanski. A key character in "The Ghost Writer" is a variant on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose dogged allegiance (some would say lap-dogged) to American interests in the Iraq war provides the blueprint for the character of Adam Lang. The fictional politician resembles Blair with a Bill Clinton chaser.

Lang owes his publisher an autobiography. Enter the ghost writer, cynical but productive, played by Ewan McGregor. He's good. Even better, though, is Pierce Brosnan, positively reborn here. He brings such clever strains of bravado and insecurity to Lang, slapping his colleagues on the back one minute and stabbing them (metaphorically) the next, it's as if we're seeing a series of facades stuck in fast-shuffle mode.

Much of the film takes place in and around Lang's fabulously grim and isolated Martha's Vineyard retreat, where the unnamed ghost writer arrives to do his interviews and research. There's the question of what happened to the previous ghost, who, his employers tell him, fell off the ferry from the mainland and drowned. Lang, meanwhile, is a hated man, and his complicity in the CIA's capture and torture of terrorist suspects hasn't helped his reputation.

Will American filmgoers perceive "The Ghost Writer" as an anti-Bush polemic? Certainly some will. But Polanski is after bigger, more slippery fish. He's less intrigued by specific topical reference points (waterboarding and the like) than by the cramped corridors of power, especially domestic power, and what misdeeds lie in the shadows. Two women in Lang's life pull various invisible strings as dictated by the story. Kim Cattrall plays Lang's aide-de-camp, though she struggles, I think, to contain her natural inclination toward camp. Invaluably, though, Olivia Williams is a snappish delight as Lang's wife.

Polanski shot it before his recent arrest in Switzerland; he finished postproduction work on the film while confined to his chalet. The Swiss courts are currently wrangling with the legality of his extradition to the U.S., a matter relating to a 32-year-old arrest warrant issued after Polanski skipped sentencing for the 1977 drugging and raping of an underage female. (See the documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" to learn more. It's a terrific film from any angle.) Nothing in the storyline of "The Ghost Writer" relates to Polanski's private life. Yet when Wilkinson's subtle rotter glances at incriminating photos brought to him by the ghost writer, he notes, offhandedly, that kids today are "so much more puritanical than we were." And at that moment you can almost hear the chuckle -- sinister, perhaps; knowing, certainly -- of the director in the wings, as he pulls the strings of Harris' plot with a flourish.

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence and a drug reference).

Running time: 2:08.

Cast: Ewan McGregor (The Ghost); Pierce Brosnan (Adam Lang); Olivia Williams (Ruth Lang); Kim Cattrall (Amelia Bly); Tom Wilkinson (Paul Emmett).

Credits: Directed by Roman Polanski; written by Robert Harris and Polanski, based on Harris' novel "The Ghost"; produced by Polanski, Robert Benmussa and Alain Sarde. A Summit Entertainment release.

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