Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer

A ghost writer hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy. -- Movie blurb.

The Ghost Writer is both very up-to-date and a throwback, because it's an obvious allusion to contemporary politics, but also very much like a well-made Hollywood movie thriller of the good old days. Critics seem confused, some saying it's "minor" or "far from his best," others affirming that it's downright masterful. It's not quite on the level of Roman Polanski's best, but not much can equal Chinatown, the greatest neo-noir ever made, or The Pianist, one of the most haunting of Holocaust films. It's the job of a pro to make his work look easy, and The Ghost Writer is apparently simple, yet layered. Outwardly conventional, it's above all entertaining. It looks, some think, like the kind of movie Polanski could "pull off in his sleep" -- a silly remark, since he's never done a story much like this. Perfection is incomprehensible to the mediocre. Some reviewers have even found The Ghost Writer yawn-inducing and wished it had more violence. Such are the rewards today of old-fashioned craftsmanship.

This film, which could almost be Hitchcock if Hitchcock had been more into politics, is a reminder of all we're missing in the post-blockbuster era when movies out of Hollywood tend to be loud CGI horrors, kitsch computer animations about bulbous shiny creatures, or all of the above, tarted up with further new technologies and the added retro wonder of -- Hey presto, 1955 again! 3D! Polanski makes up-to-date use of cell phones and, most notably, a female GPS voice in a compact BMW. But he doesn't use any explosions here, and only one significant gunshot. What are the results of this parsimony? Well, conversations that matter; facial expressions that matter; background music that artfully guides, rather than rudely forces, audience response. A mainstream movie for grownups.

The politics is both obvious and subtle. Clearly this tale of a writer called in to do over the autobiography of an English ex-PM when his predecessor has mysteriously died refers to the human rights violations of the Bush War on Terror era and Tony Blair's collusion in crimes -- all made worse and blunter here. But the Manchurian Candidate suggestion of a totally manipulated western leader, again not at all subtle, can't but make one ponder, especially when evoked in terms of campus recruitment during halcyon days at 1970's Cambridge, with student theatricals, costume parties, puffs of marijuana. A politician who was more of an actor than anything else. A smart, sexy woman. Cherchez la femme! An expanding world of manipulation, exile, menace, humiliation, and temptation.

We begin with the sell-out of a hack who's "not a proper writer," The Ghost (Ewan McGregor), who has no other name, a Brit virtually trapped by his American agent into accepting the lucrative job of redoing the memoirs of ex-PM Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). Then the writer is whisked to Lang in exile in a modernist fortress-like house on Cape Cod. Lang's various bodyguards and servants and attendant ladies are like the attendants of a posh prison, or are for the Ghost anyway. He manages to bypass them, and sleep with the wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams). Lang's secretary Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall) is the sexiest of prison guards -- she has the key to the manuscript the Ghost must finish. Why is it so closely guarded? The Ghost finds it to be a wonderful cure for insomnia, but it seems to hide some secret.

Polanski's way of making the film enhances its resonance. His locations are fake, New England and New York shot in Germany. His Cape Cod is a little colder, harsher, and uglier than usual, but its menace seems real enough. Links with Polanski's own experience may seem obvious, but they're so numerous you wonder at the man's ingenuity. How did he find all this in a novel by Robert Harris? When Lang's ex-minister refers his human rights violations to the International Criminal Court it seems he won't be able to return to England. Hints of unsafe exile abound. Though be it noted, Polanski is not an "exile" from the US and does not want to live there, his ironic depiction of Lang shows he knows what it's like to live in expensive isolation. After all he did edit the film under house arrest in Switzerland.

The Ghost is "not a proper writer" but becomes a powerful detective and investigator, a truth-teller working for liars. The film dramatizes the decline of publishing into cheap journalism for fast money, instant books made to make a bundle off the latest scandal, bosses who like writers most who deliver fast. The Ghost gets jacked around (including sex he says is "not a good idea" but indulges in anyway) but manages to be highly effective despite the danger he is obviously in of being gobbled up by forces far greater than he is.

In this elegant, highly polished and conventional film in which the political and the personal constantly resonate, every actor gets a chance to shine. Ewan McGregor has never been better -- the fact that as an actor he has come to seem a skillful hack makes for perfect irony in the casting. His character is just that, but a neutrality that can be boring in some of his roles makes him an appealing Everyman. Pierce Brosnan's Lang is a complexly shallow man, a hostile charmer, a garrulous speaker with nothing to say. The wife, the irresistible Olivia Williams, wearing her role like a glove, is sensuous and angry. Kim Cattrell is a sexy automaton, a perfect appendage of the chilly mansion. Tom Wilksonson delivers wonderful menace. No one disappoints. The Ghost Writer makes everybody look good.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.