The Ghost Writer (2010)

Director: Roman Polanski

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Wilkinson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Read between the lies.

Plot: A writer (McGregor) stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Brosnan) complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident. In director Roman Polanski's tense drama, the author realizes that his discovery threatens some very powerful people who will do anything to ensure that certain episodes from Lang's past remain buried.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yeah.

So far I haven't seen anything by Polanski I didn't like...except of course that whole child rape thing in the 70s. I just finished his latest and I'm impressed once again. He's delivered an interesting thriller that has that Hitchcock vibe from long ago. It moves along at a good pace until about the last twenty or so minutes when it really ratchets up into high gear and shit starts happening all over the place. The sequence that starts just before the last trip on the ferry is terrific.


I liked how we as an audience, like McGregor's character, don't know who to trust so that when he makes blind decisions on who to (or not to) trust, we're in the dark just as much and that creates tension. The casting works. Brosnan's presence brings weight to his Adam Lang, the former Prime Minister of England, McGregor has that everyman quality about him and the supporting casts does very well. It was neat seeing some familiar faces I hadn't seen in a while like Jim Belushi and especially Eli Wallach (who'll be 95 in December!!!). Throughout the picture I kept thinking that the score (very nice, btw) was either by Ennio Morricone or Wojciech Kilar. Nope. It was Alexandre Desplat, a French composer I've heard of but I'm not familiar much with his work. This guy's been cranking out more than four scores a year for 25 years! And here I am babbling on about movies. I feel so insignificant. And the ending? Nice! I was very satisfied and ready to dig into some Polanski I haven't seen.