THE HOST WRITER MOVIE MOVIE

Grade: B+ (Rated PG-13 for language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence, and a drug reference. “The Ghost Writer” is minor Polanski but it’s one of the rare thrillers these days that plays up to you instead of down. The film comes together in the end in a way that makes sense of everything that came before. It took me a while to decipher all the whorls and curvatures in the plot, but I chalk that up to my ineptitude and not Polanski’s. The entire political apparatus that surrounds him is a classic example of a Hitchcockian “McGuffin” – a great white shark that proves to be a red herring. He is the archetypal Hitchcock hero, an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. I suppose one could object to the issues of rendition and torture being employed in such a cavalier fashion, but, at its core, “The Ghost Writer” is about The Ghost’s tentative, almost accidental skullduggery. It would be a mistake to take this uniformly well-acted film seriously as a political “statement.” Yes, it features a nefarious corporation with a name that sounds suspiciously like Halliburton, and Lang, who is clearly based on Tony Blair, is portrayed here as a mindless lackey of the Bush administration. He fears he will suffer the same fate as his predecessor. (One of the terrorists died.) While all this is going on, The Ghost uncovers, accidentally, evidence left by Ghost No. Helena.Ī bigger storm brews when Lang’s former foreign minister ( Robert Pugh) agitates in public for Lang to be tried in The Hague for colluding in the kidnapping of four Pakistani terrorists who were subsequently delivered to the CIA for torture. As Lang’s tart wife, Ruth (a first-rate Olivia Williams), puts it, it’s like being exiled with Napoleon in St. This luxury is no match for the drizzly grayness of the location. Lang is encamped in a luxurious, isolated house on the island while conducting a stateside lecture tour.

THE HOST WRITER MOVIE MOVIE

The film may seem insubstantial while you’re watching it, but, in its own tingly, deadpan way, it has many of Polanski’s trademarks: a curdling, cruel humor an outsider hero who is also a patsy and a pervasive dread.Įwan McGregor plays a character – nameless in both the book and the movie and listed in the credits simply as “The Ghost” – who is hired to ghostwrite the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang ( Pierce Brosnan) after his previous collaborator is found mysteriously washed up on the shores of Martha’s Vineyard. Gracefully, inexorably, it goes from silly to scabrous. I'll hunt out more fiction podcasts to pass the time, I think, but I doubt this one will live long in the memory.Roman Polanski’s deft political thriller “ The Ghost Writer,” based on the 2007 Robert Harris bestseller “The Ghost,” is equal parts comedy and black comedy. I guessed most of its reveals prior to them being confirmed, I don't think this is because I'm really good at guessing plot, but more that it's much harder to hide foreshadowing details in an audio play, as you literally have to mention them for it to work. The sound design is quite good, and I understood what was happening all the time. Scott doesn't tip his hand too much in either direction and the pair do appear to have chemistry. The performances are good, Kate Mara carries most of the story and is natural and charming. I mean, essentially, all the release has going for it is its story. Is Kate making connections that aren't there or is there more to James' story than he's been willing to tell. Then a real-life murder in Kate's neighbourhood rings dangerously close to specifics in the early draft of the novel. Kate's gift was getting subjects to open up and their discussions reveal some details about James' childhood, which Kate works into the book. Her agent secures her a job as a ghostwriter for a novel that a billionaire businessman (Adam Scott) wants to produce, regarding an incident in the neighbourhood he grew up in. She is a shut in, never leaving her apartment and maintaining all her relationships over the phone or video chat. Kate (Kate Mara) is a former journalist whose mental health has deteriorated over the months, since the death of her mother. It wasn't anything ground-breaking, indeed Radio plays go back for decades, and the story of this one isn't particularly original, but it was nicely performed and fun whilst it lasted. 'Ghostwriter' is a feature length radio play style podcast, telling a complete story. When a successful ghostwriter, the Ghost (Ewan McGregor), agrees to finish the memoirs of Adam Long (Pierce Brosnan), England's former prime minister, his publisher assures him it's the chance of a lifetime.

Normally I want non-fiction whilst I'm working but today, with all my podcast subscriptions listened too, I decided to try something different. 2010 129 min PG-13 Drama, Suspense Feature Film.

The host writer movie