Directed by Roman Polanski. Starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, Eli Wallach, James Belushi 15A cert, gen release, 128 min
Roman Polanski's latest is an unsettling, paranoiac return to form, writes DONALD CLARKE
THERE WERE things to like about Roman Polanski's last two films: Oliver Twistwas nicely stuffed with beery incident and The Pianistdrew an impressively strange performance from Adrien Brody.
However for all their autobiographical echoes, neither project felt much like a proper Polanski movie. Missing was the focused menace of his great Polish pictures such as Knife in the Water, British films such as Repulsion, and Hollywood pictures such as Rosemary's Baby. Indeed, you could argue that, since his hasty departure from the US in 1977, following charges of statutory rape, Polanski, inhibited by messy Europudding funding, has never quite found his own voice again.
The biggest surprise about The Ghostis that it looks so like a genuine, officially licensed Polanski product. Neither the scenario nor the manner of the film's production made this seem very likely. Based on a page-turner by Robert Harris, the film follows an unnamed journalist as he accepts a commission to ghostwrite the memoirs of a former British prime minister named Adam Lang.
Arriving on Martha’s Vineyard, where the retiree lives with his wife and assistant, the hero gets drawn into a series of interlocking intrigues. It seems that his predecessor on the job was discovered dead on a nearby beach.
Certain irregularities concerning Lang’s time in university compromise the integrity of the developing book. Gradually, the links between Lang and the US government begin pointing the Ghost towards a terrifying realisation. Unflattering conclusions concerning Tony Blair’s premiership are positively encouraged.
It all sounds a bit too breathless – a bit too racy – to deliver classic Polanski. Moreover, the fact that the director, under house arrest following well-publicised unpleasantness in Switzerland, organised the post-production at a distance surely guarantees that the picture will turn out to be a dog’s dinner.
Not so. From the moment the hero arrives on the wintry island and gets coolly inducted into the politician's domestic cabal, it becomes clear that the hard claustrophobia of Knife in the Waterand the rumbling paranoia of Repulsionare due to make partial comebacks.
Polanski has cast his film with cynical, cheeky brilliance. Doesn’t Ewan McGregor too often fade into the scenery these days? Well, that’s what a ghostwriter should do; he should be both there and not there.
Isn’t Pierce Brosnan always just a little too oily on film? Hey, the man is playing a version of Tony Blair; rampaging artificiality and forced bonhomie are exactly what is required.
You might reasonably argue that Olivia Williams, making a permanently disgusted Lady Macbeth of Mrs Lang, emotes both men off the screen, but she is the only person being askedto employ her acting glands.
For once, the peculiar nature of the production actually adds to its queasy Polanskiness (Polanskosity?). London doesn’t look like London (it isn’t). Martha’s Vineyard doesn’t look like Martha’s Vineyard (it isn’t). Everything about the appearance of the piece – the stony, Bergmanesque beaches; the wide-angled lenses; the generic non-art on Lang’s walls – drags us away from the material world and towards one of the internal psychological spaces that so characterised Polanski’s early work.
There is, of course, a downside to the weirdness of the piece. The novel had serious (not to say furious) points to make about New Labour’s closeness to the US government. The longer the film goes on, however, the more connections it severs with reality. The eventual, criminally misjudged ending – melodramatic to the point of absurdity – tries to tie up all dangling narratives, but only serves to emphasise how uninterested Polanski is in the nuts and bolts of his plot.
Never mind that. For all its flaws, The Ghostconfirms that certain of Polanski's creative muscles remain unaltered by the passing decades. If things go badly for him with the judge, this might be the last chance we get to see them exercised. Rush along.
