Movie Review: 'The Ghost Writer' an old-style intelligent thriller

Guy Farrandis/Summit Entertainment

Kim Cattrall (from left), Olivia Williams and Pierce Brosnan star in Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer."

The body that washes up on shore at the start of "The Ghost Writer" is not the first of many, which may surprise moviegoers accustomed to the bloodshed and chaos that characterize the modern so-called thriller.

Roman Polanski, director of "The Ghost Writer," certainly has contributed his share of clutching hands, flashing knives and other frights to film history. (His gory 1971 "Macbeth" is widely interpreted as his reaction to the Manson family murder of his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate.) But Polanski, like Hitchcock, is better described as a master of suspense than of shock, and "The Ghost Writer" is a methodical, intelligent, adult mystery of a type that, for the most part, has vanished from movie screens.

Guy Farrandis/Summit Entertainment

Kim Cattrall (from left), Olivia Williams and Pierce Brosnan star in Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer."

Ewan McGregor plays "the ghost," a veteran ghostwriter (his previous book, written for a magician, was titled "I Came, I Sawed, I Conquered"), recruited with a $200,000 paycheck to rewrite the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). Lang is a somewhat Tony Blair-like former prime minister of the United Kingdom who once was wildly popular but is now disdained as America's "lap dog," and under investigation for war crimes for turning over terror suspects to CIA torture.

The ghost — the character, tellingly, never is given a name — travels to Lang's luxurious, well-guarded modern retreat on a gloomy island off the Eastern seaboard, where Lang's manuscript is kept under lock and key and the tension between Lang's wife (Olivia Williams) and his loyal, longtime aide (Kim Cattrall) is as stormy as the dark ocean sky. In a beautiful detail (possibly lifted from Robert Harris' original novel, adapted for the screen by Harris and Polanski), the aide explains that she doesn't wear her wedding ring because "it's far too large. It bleeps when I go through airport security."

When Lang learns he is being investigated for war crimes, he decides he must remain in the U.S. to avoid the possibility of arrest — a predicament that Polanski can identify with: The director has been in exile from America since 1978, when he fled the country to avoid sentencing in a case involving sex with a 13-year-old girl. This is why "The Ghost Writer" was shot in Germany, despite its U.S. setting.

Polanski probably identifies with both Lang — a defensive celebrity in exile, equally vilified and lionized — and the ghost, a commercial artist of sorts who can't quite comprehend the flesh-and-blood confusion and conspiracy around him. Whatever Polanski's personal failings (I won't argue with those who say he belongs in jail), he's a great filmmaker, and "The Ghost Writer" is his best work since the 2002 Oscar-winner "The Pianist" -- and possibly his best since the 1970s.

"The Ghost Writer" playing is exclusively at Malco's Ridgeway Four.

— John Beifuss, 529-2394

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