Talking Pictures

Rich Bonaduce reviews “The Ghost Writer”

Rich’s Quickie: If you can handle its length and pacing (and the sins of the director), it satisfies.

Write: The term “Political Mystery” may not get your pulse racing, but this is one film to see, anyway. It is well written and well acted, especially by central figure Ewan McGregor (“The Ghost” himself!), but no less so than by a great supporting cast including Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Hutton, Tom Wilkinson, Kim Cattrall and Olivia Williams, among others. The Ghost Writer has its own sense of humor that keeps a possibly disconnected set of circumstances real and and humanizing the people, but it never seems out of place; it’s not as though someone engages in slapstick or pratfalls just to juice up the heady script. Instead, the humor seems the natural kind that occurs conversationally between friends, equals, or even the intellectual cat and mouse.

Wrong: And it needs that humor; it is a bit long at 128 minutes, and paced just a touch slow, although I didn’t’ mind it – just noticed it. It is also directed by notorious bad boy Roman Polanski, and it does drop a message or two here and there about the character of America. Still, it’s an enjoyable film that makes you actually care what happens to the political animals onscreen.

Movie Grade: B

Rated PG-13 for language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence and a drug reference.
MPAA: Rated PG for some rude humor and language.
Director: Roman Polanski
Writer(s): Robert Harris (novel “The Ghost”), Robert Harris adaptation and Roman Polanski screenplay

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