Reality Is Stranger Than Fiction-Ewan McGregor’s “The Ghost Writer” (2010)- A Film Review       

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Ghost Writer, starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, directed by the legendary Roman Polanski, 2010

Okay, everybody back in the day, back in the 2002, 2003 day in the lead-up to the disastrous and ill-fated Iraq War misadventure to get Saddam Hussein out of power knew that that the British, that then Prime Minister Tony Blair specifically was George W. Bush’s “poodle.” That the long gone British Empire and its residue were in lockstep with whatever Washington had planned. Whatever caper the U.S government was up for they could depend on the “cousins” to back them up. That situation, that understanding of realpolitik is what underlies the film under review, The Ghost Writer, with the interesting fictional notion that those locksteps were not happenstance but a result of nefarious actions by, well, by who else but the American CIA. Although given how badly that organization “slam dunk” dropped the ball on Iraq intelligence I seriously question that proposition in realpolitik but makes a nice premise for a film.     

Here’s the play on this fine political thriller from the direction of Roman Polanski and the main actors. Like a lot of sports figures, socialites, and entertainers politicians who want to publish their memoirs need some editorial help, need a ghost writer to take the mass of gibberish and turn it into a finely wrought book that people will actually read. That was the situation with Tony Blair, oops, Adam Lang, the ex-Prime Minister of England during the catastrophic Iraq War (2003 version in case there is confusion) when he wanted to write his memoirs. But a funny thing happened before they could be whipped into shape. The original ghost writer, a political confidante, was washed up on shore in Martha’s Vineyard when Lang was spending his “exile.”  Seemingly an accident so another “ghost” had to be brought in, this time a nameless ghost played by Ewan McGregor. He went to work trying to patch things together from what the difficult Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan, had written and would divulge in personal interviews between the two.

Then world politics intruded. Allegedly Lang while knee deep in collusion with the Americans had authorized the use of illegal seizure of suspected terrorists turning them over to the CIA for torture and the International Criminal Tribunal wanted his head. That hard fact was what led the ghost to investigate what the hell was going on after being given some information that the original ghost writer’s death might not have been an accident. Then the world begins to get very scary for him (although I am not sure I would confide in him for anything important since whenever he got some kind of lead he would immediately blab the whole thing to whoever would listen-and not all them it turned out were disinterested parties).       

The more the ghost learns the more it looks like back in his youth Lang had been recruited by the CIA seemingly for the long-term purpose of having him vie for leadership of the Labor Party and who knows maybe the Prime Minister-ship. A compliant “poodle” no question. But looks are deceiving since it was not the half-bright Lang who had been recruited by the CIA but the power behind the throne-Lang’s wife the fetching and brilliant Ruth, played by Olivia Williams, who had been recruited by a Harvard Law professor. That came out though only after Lang had been assassinated by a distraught “gold star” father of a British soldier killed in Iraq. That CIA connection is the secret that the original ghost had left clues for in the manuscript re-write and other evidence. As for the ghost he in his naiveté wound up with an unknown fate-all we know is that once Ruth found out that he knew the score he was apparently run over by a very convenient speeding car while he was looking for a cab as the incriminating pages of the manuscript were scattered to the four winds.       

This was a very good political thriller, a good piece of fiction, but here is a sobering thought. None of the real main actors in the Iraq war crimes Bush, Blair, Rummy, slam dunk Tenet, Cheney or their underlings stood in the docket anywhere for their criminal actions. Don’t blame that on the film though -see this one.