Roman Polanski/ France/Germany/UK 2010/ 128 min/ 15/ Japanese with English subtitles
“Name me one decision that Adam Lang took as prime minister that wasn’t in the interests of the USA.” Whether or not novelist Robert Harris based the character of the Labour PM in his 2007 novel on his former friend Tony Blair, is almost beside the point. Blair’s role as a ventriloquist’s puppet for George Bush adds yet another layer of meaning to the neatly ambiguous title of Roman Polanski’s adaptation that retains Harris’s agreeably close-to-the-bone narrative, released the very year Blair’s own memoirs are on the shelves.
Most satisfying of all, though, is the examination of how our leaders are reduced to serving the interests of the US
An unnamed ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is hired to pen the memoirs of ex-PM Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) after the previous writer died in a dubious accident. Whisked off to a remote American island, where the Lang clan are holed up, the ghost soon realises what he’s let himself in for when he witnesses the protesters who want blood for Lang’s war crimes. Soon the ghost is caught up in the role of his predecessor, trying to uncover the shady dealings that involve Lang’s past and his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams).
Polanski, co-adapting the screenplay with Harris himself, delivers a riveting thriller that boasts a timely political resonance, full-blooded performances and an edgy and elegant score from Alexandre Desplat. McGregor is perfectly sympathetic as the Hitchcockian everyman in over his head, while Brosnan fits the shoes of the charming but compromised PM well, particularly in a late scene where his tolerance for liberalism runs out. Many of the themes are familiar for Polanski; the fateful following of another’s doomed path (The Tenant) and the uncovering of a scandal involving those in power (Chinatown), not to mention that Polanski’s own exile from the US mirrors Lang having to remain in America for fear of prosecution in a British war trial. Most satisfying of all, though, is the examination of how our leaders are reduced to serving the interests of the US; it may not be a novel point but how persistently true it has proven to be.
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