The Constant Gardener Reviews

New York Times: Digging Up the Truth in a Heart of Darkness

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: August 31, 2005

Ralph Fiennes has a peculiar kind of negative charisma. In his best performances, he commands the screen by deflecting attention, as though he wished the camera could hide him from our scrutiny rather than exposing him to us. It is hard to think of another movie actor who can be so convincingly shy, so protective of the psychological privacy of his characters.

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Mild-mannered bulldog: Ralph Fiennes in "The Constant Gardener."

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In "The Constant Gardener," Fernando Meirelles's excellent adaptation of John le Carré's novel, Mr. Fiennes plays Justin Quayle, a British diplomat whose surname hardly suggests strength or decisiveness. Justin's main qualities seem, at least at first, to be diffidence, his interest in gardening and a fumbling, self-effacing kindness. His words half swallowed, his features perpetually tinged with guilt, Justin is temperamentally unsuited to being the hero of a globe-trotting political thriller, which is part of why "The Constant Gardener" is an unusually satisfying example of the genre.

Another reason is that, unlike most other recent examples - "The Interpreter," Sydney Pollack's hectic and empty star vehicle for Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn comes to mind - Mr. Meirelles's film actually bothers to say something about global politics. If what it says provokes some indignant rebuttal (be on the lookout for op-ed columns and public relations bulletins challenging its dire view of big pharmaceutical companies), so much the better. In pointedly applying President Bush's phrase "axis of evil" to multinational corporations rather than to rogue states, the movie shows a willingness to risk didacticism in the service of encouraging discussion. This strikes me as noble, but it would also strike me as annoying if Mr. Meirelles were not such a skilled and subtle filmmaker, and if his cast were not so sensitive and sly.

There is more to the film than a twisting plot and a topical hook, and also more than visual bravura, colorful locations and fine, mostly British, acting. (Danny Huston is superbly creepy as Justin's two-faced friend and colleague, and the incomparable Bill Nighy shows a knack for soft-spoken villainy that makes you wish for a dozen sequels.) This is a supremely well-executed piece of popular entertainment that is likely to linger in your mind and may even trouble your conscience. Which is only proper, since the theme of the film, as of Mr. le Carré's novel, is the uneasy, divided conscience of the liberal West.

Fittingly enough for a man in his profession, Justin is a creature of moderation and compromise, apparently without strong views of his own. His young wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), is another story. They meet at a lecture Justin is giving on British foreign policy, after which Tessa angrily, tearfully challenges Britain's participation in the war in Iraq, as if embodying the caricature of people who hold such views as shrill hysterics. Her outburst, which clears the room, provokes an oddly sympathetic reaction in Justin - a desire to comfort and protect this furious (and also very pretty) antagonist. For her part, Tessa finds something attractive about his solicitude, and his refusal to take offense. "I feel safe with you," she says after they make love for the first time, and he, without saying as much, clearly feels more alive with her.

But for most of the movie, which is an elegant origami of flashbacks and foreshadowings, Tessa is dead, murdered in the Kenyan wilderness, where she had gone with a Belgian doctor of African ancestry named Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé), who many in the Nairobi expatriate community assumed was her lover. In that cozy, gossipy world, where the habits of colonial rule seem to have adapted themselves easily to the requirements of do-gooder paternalism, Tessa was always something of a scandalous woman, puncturing the hypocritical politesse of cocktail parties with rude questions about money, power, poverty and disease. She preferred to spend her time - usually in the company of Dr. Bluhm - wandering through slums and villages, where, especially while pregnant, she cut a somewhat self-consciously saintly figure.

One easy criticism of "The Constant Gardener" is that like so many other movies of its kind, it uses the misery of the developing world as an exotic backdrop for a story about the travails of white people. Fair enough, except that it is precisely the moral failures and obligations of the wealthy world that are at issue here. It is also worth noting that Mr. Meirelles is from Brazil, a country whose social and political landscape may resemble Kenya's more than Britain's. One cannot help but feel that his camera - operated by the exceptionally gifted Uruguayan cinematographer César Charlone - feels more at home in the rusty heat of Africa than in the chilly, gray austerity of Europe. There is, in his beautiful, crowded frames, a palpable tension between foreground and background, a sense that the real human scale of the story is not to be found in the fates of Justin and Tessa, however affecting these may be.

This is, in other words, a movie acutely aware of its own limitations. Mr. Meirelles's previous film, "City of God," a Scorsesean epic of the Rio slums, also tried to embed social concern within the conventions of pop filmmaking. It was a bit of an awkward fit, especially at those moments where the horror of real-world brutality shattered the gangster bravado. This time, constrained by the screenwriter Jeffrey Caine's nimble streamlining of Mr. le Carré's book, the director manages a more consistent tone, and implies more violence than he shows. There are nonetheless scenes - in particular a rebel raid on a refugee camp in Sudan - whose sheer cinematic intensity makes them more dazzling than appalling.

But that is always the risk of making entertainment out of the world's trouble, an undertaking that is nonetheless worthwhile and that few have pursued as long or as well as Mr. le Carré. The world has changed since the end of the cold war, which was his great subject, and "The Constant Gardener" can stand as an example of how thriller-making has become more difficult. Mr. le Carré's novels of East-West espionage were exercises in speculative realism; it was always possible to imagine that something like the chess games between Smiley and Karla were really going on behind the scenes. It is harder to take literally what happens in this film. The premise is that the profiteering impulses of global capitalism (thuggishly embodied by Gerard McSorley's drug-company executive) are enabled by the diplomacy and trade policy of Western governments. This seems quite plausible. Less so is the idea that this collusion is propelled by conspiracy, skulduggery and murder. Given the power of the villains and the weakness of the victims, it would hardly need to be.

So it may be best to take the cloak-and-dagger elements of "The Constant Gardener," and the vision of justice with which it concludes, as metaphors, symbolic crystallizations of a reality too complex and diffuse to be dramatized by more empirical means. Justin Quayle, then, is an allegorical figure, an emblem of timid virtue roused to heroic action by the discovery of his own complicity with evil.

The Constant Gardener

Opens today nationwide.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles; screenplay by Jeffrey Caine, based on the novel by John le Carré; director of photography, César Charlone; edited by Claire Simpson; music by Alberto Iglesias; production designer, Mark Tildesley; produced by Simon Channing Williams; released by Focus Features. Running time: 129 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Ralph Fiennes (Justin Quayle), Rachel Weisz (Tessa Quayle), Danny Huston (Sandy Woodrow), Bill Nighy (Sir Bernard Pellegrin), Pete Postlethwaite (Lorbeer), Hubert Koundé (Dr. Arnold Bluhm) and Gerard McSorley (Sir Kenneth Curtiss).

"The Constant Gardener" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has scenes of sexuality, brief nudity and violence.

 

The Hollywood Reporter: The Constant Gardener

By Kirk Honeycutt

Bottom line: Director Fernando Meirelles gives a Third World p.o.v. to John le Carre's often talky, Euro-centric tale of betrayal, venality and corporate malfeasance.

John le Carre's densely plotted novels, which revolve around espionage, moral corruption and forces of evil at work around the globe, often flounder when transferred to the screen. Plots gets severely truncated and nuances are lost. Filmmakers try to cherry-pick the "cinematic" bits from the stories -- the cloak-and-dagger maneuvers -- but those separate with difficulty from the texture of his characters' lives and the thorough documentation of how rogues, governments and multinational corporations behave.

"The Constant Gardener" is a happy exception. One reason might be the inspired choice of Fernando Meirelles, the Oscar-nominated Brazilian director of "City of God," to bring the story to the screen. His impressionistic, guerilla style of filmmaking works surprisingly well in capturing the hypnotic urgency of le Carre's fiction. And his viewpoint is less British and more Third World. There are awkward moments, given the need to rush through a convoluted plot, and the peripheral characters that never fully come alive. But "The Constant Gardener" gets the essence of the story.

With Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz toplining a work of clear passion, the film looks set for late summer counterprogramming as well as a competitive run with upcoming prestige offerings for Oscar nominations. Boxoffice should be steady though well short of blockbuster status.

The film, like the novel, opens with the death of a major character. Tessa Quayle (Weisz), a tireless political activist, is discovered brutally murdered in a remote area in northern Kenya. Her older husband is Justin (Fiennes), an ineffectual career diplomat attached to the British High Command in Nairobi, mostly concerned with tending his flower garden and keeping up appearances.

Initially, he takes the news with the apparent sangfroid of a true Etonian. Indeed it is Justin's associate, Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), who throws up at the sight of Tessa's mutilated body in the morgue, not Justin. Complicating his reaction is an indication that her murder might be a crime of passion: The Kenyan doctor (Hubert Kounde) with whom she was traveling has disappeared and is the chief suspect.

Justin then makes discoveries that could substantiate rumors of other infidelities by his young wife. But what no one in the community of expats in Nairobi counts on is the fierce love this man still has for the woman he scarcely got to know in their brief marriage.

The story moves in a nonlinear way as Justin turns into a mild-mannered bulldog, seeking an explanation for his wife's death. Then, in flashbacks, he examines more closely who his wife was. In the course of his confrontation with things he previously chose not to see, he draws closer to his wife; he understands her point of view, what mattered to her, and comes to love her even more.

This odyssey pulls him into the shady world of multinational pharmaceuticals or "pharmas" as the drug giants are called. These are organizations with enormous resources and economic power, virtual nations onto themselves, who think nothing about testing new drugs in the impoverished Third World.

Justin's investigation into what might have caused someone to order his wife's murder takes him into a scary and sinister terrain, where one feels no safer in the blazing light of day then in the mysterious dark of the night.

He visits Kibera, the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa. In London, the British government confiscates his passport. He travels to Berlin with a fake passport to interview the scared head of a pharma watchdog group. He returns to Kenya to confront those with blood on their hands, then journeys to Sudan, where refugees live in vile conditions. The journey ends at the strangely beautiful site of his wife's murder.

(For all the criticism of the Kenyan government by the book and the film, the same government allowed the film to shoot in that country.)

The major disappointment comes in Justin's encounters with the crooks, thugs, spies, corrupt businessmen and Her Majesty's mendacious civil servants. These are played by such wonderful actors as Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Nick Reding and Gerard McSorley. Yet they are all too familiar types. No doubt perfectly accurate types but le Carre -- adapted here by Jeffrey Caine -- is capable of creating characters with greater subtlety and dimension.

What distracts us from such things is Meirelles' arresting style that creates a vivid sense of place. Working again with cinematographer Cesar Charlone, the director overexposes some scenes, producing a kind of white on white. Meanwhile, in the slums and villages, as with the favela in "City of God," are a riot of deeply saturated colors. The camera jumps and tries to focus, as if a documentary film crew were shooting the film. Editor Claire Simpson keeps the story rushing forward as Alberto Iglesias' soft music, containing hints of African rock, pulsates in the background.

THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Focus Features
Focus Features presents in association with the U.K. Film Council a Potboiler production in association with Scion Films
Credits:
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Screenwriter: Jeffrey Caine
Based on the novel by: John le Carre
Producer: Simon Channing Williams
Executive producers: Gail Egan, Robert Jones, Donald Ranvaud, Jeff Abberley, Julia Blackman
Director of photography: Cesar Charlone
Production designer: Mark Tildesley
Music: Alberto Iglesias
Costumes: Odile Dicks-Mireaux
Editor: Claire Simpson
Cast:
Justin Quayle: Ralph Fiennes
Tessa Quayle: Rachel Weisz
Sandy: Danny Huston
Sir Pellegrin: Bill Nighy
Marcus: Pete Postlethwaite
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 130 minutes


Copyright 2005 The Hollywood Reporter

'The Constant Gardener' cultivates deep interest

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The problem with message movies is audiences often kill the messenger by not going to see them.

Hopefully that won't happen to the excellent new picture "The Constant Gardener," based on a John Le Carre best seller and directed with intelligence and measured intensity by Fernando Meirelles. His Brazilian film "City of God" earned Meirelles a best director Oscar nomination — and a place on nearly every 10-best list across the country.

Focus Features 'The Constant Gardener' A- The verdict: A thoughtful thriller blessed with excellent actors and an inspired director. Director: Fernando Meirelles Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Archie Panjabi, Bill Nighy Run time: 129 minutes Release date: August 31, 2005 Rating: R for language, some violent images and sexual content/nudity.

"The Constant Gardener," which is Meirelles' English-language debut, doesn't crackle and pop like his earlier triumph. It's a more thoughtful piece, grounded in great acting, brilliant directing and a timely theme: how the giant pharmaceutical companies are exploiting the already-beleaguered African population.

Ralph Fiennes stars as Justin Quayle. As the title suggests, he's a quiet, conservative man, content to cultivate his garden and not go looking for trouble. Trouble is, Justin's a midlevel British diplomat stationed in Kenya, where trouble often comes unbidden.

We first meet Justin in England as he's waving goodbye to his wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), who's headed to Africa with her co-worker — and, some say, lover — Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Kounde) to expose the drug labels' dirty dealing.

Tessa is a passionate idealist, always at the ready to go to battle on the behalf of the have-nots. To Justin's more jaded colleagues, well-played by Bill Nighy and Danny Huston, she's a dangerous live wire, likely to pursue her do-gooding at the very moment it would do them the least good. As far as the top brass is concerned, she is, well, inappropriate. And Tessa revels in being seen as such.

Unfortunately, her actions have tragic consequences, which transform Justin from a rational, hands-off cog in the bureaucratic machine to an impassioned man on a mission. And the more he uncovers, the more in peril he becomes, as the massive forces of corporate greed, international corruption and global indifference combine to block his efforts.

It's important that Tessa isn't portrayed as a saint. Her connection to groups with names like Women for Life is slyly amusing in that it gives the higher-ups another reason to dismiss her. Her insistence that she go to the same hospital as the locals is admirable, but it also smacks a bit of naivete and showboating.

Tessa's complexity enhances the film's impact. She may be a flawed heroine, but she's a heroine nonetheless. The pharmaceutical companies are happily dispensing outdated drugs; it's a tax write-off and a public relations ploy. More infuriating, they are trying out untested drugs on the Kenyans, whom they see as disposable people.

Just a few months earlier, the staid Justin may have muttered something about "bad form," but he wouldn't have done anything about it. His transformation into someone willing to work outside the rules, to look into the heart of a darkness supported and sustained by so-called civilized nations and supposedly benign companies, is compelling and unnerving.

We're emotionally invested in Justin and Tessa — at times, their relationship suggests the one between Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in "The Way We Were." She's the outspoken activist, and he's the increasingly marginalized spouse, meant to be her buffer and apologist. Until, that is, fate intervenes.

Few actors do haunted as well as Fiennes. Or ambivalent. Or distracted. After inexplicably turning up in questionable drivel like "Maid in Manhattan," Fiennes seems to be back on track. He gives an Oscar-worthy portrayal, holding us with his quivering half-smile and his wounded eyes. Weisz may have an Oscar chance as well. Her Tessa is a vibrant, impressive woman who simply can't leave well enough alone — especially when something isn't "well enough" in the least.

Meirelles gives "The Constant Gardener" an urgency yet never loses sight of the human aspect of Le Carre's story. When was the last time you choked up in the middle of a spy thriller?

EW: The Constant Gardener

Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum

GLOBAL WARNING Fiennes (left) nobly battles a growing drug conspiracy in Gardener

Ralph Fiennes' pale, wounded gaze and tight smile often lead him to play men who are pained, unsettled — he won a Tony award for his performance as Hamlet, Prince of Agita, and even his Nazi in Schindler's List had Issues. But it's not just his physiognomy that marks him. Fiennes' distracted, inward-turning manner projects an ambivalence about the whole business of acting, or at least of stardom, and that itchiness conveys itself to his audience, making us more apt to speak of his work with admiration and respect than with love. Justin Quayle, the amateur plant-fancier who takes the title in The Constant Gardener, is another hooded Fiennes fellow, a man more at ease with greenhouse cuttings than with the cocktail chatter that goes along with the post of a midlevel career diplomat stationed in Kenya. But such is the clarity and passionate intelligence of Fernando Meirelles' adaptation of John le Carré's urgent 2001 novel, about deadly pharmaceutical arrogance in Africa, that Fiennes blooms in his most empathetic, extroverted, and lovable work in years. As in any le Carré creation, the players in this one are morally inconstant people who keep secrets and betray those closest to them. When, at the beginning of the saga, Justin's wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), is reported gruesomely murdered on an isolated stretch of country (she had been accompanied by a local doctor working to contain tuberculosis and AIDS, and the black-and-white pair had been rumored to be lovers), Justin himself really doesn't know what Tessa did with her days as a human rights ''activist.'' All he knows is that he adored her for her fire and for her commitment to fight, while he, a le Carré chap, after all, equivocated. (Weisz makes it easy to believe Tessa's fearlessness; she's as mobile, open-faced, and sexually alive as Fiennes is shuttered, and the two make a potent couple, even if the casting closes the generation gap that figures in the book.) Tessa's death opens The Constant Gardener. Why she died (with damning information about multinational drug malfeasance in her possession) propels the plot, as Justin awakens from his complacency to understand the posthumous truth about her real work, and, poignantly, about their own marriage. Meirelles, meanwhile, brightens the author's wide, dark field with rich color, adding his own distinctive cinematic feel for the desperation, as well as the vibrancy, of the global underclass. Maturing the grabby style of hip-hoppy energy and visual fillips he brought to City of God (where he featured Rio de Janeiro as something between a circle of hell and a really cool setting for a music video), the Oscar-nominated Brazilian filmmaker shoots the landscape of Kenya, slums and magnificent wild territory, children and birds, with a new flow. There's less superfluous ''art'' now, more concentration of purpose from frequent collaborator César Charlone's voluptuous cinematography. Now the shots don't waste time saying, Look at me; instead they urge, Look, look at what is really happening to millions of Africans as disease ruthlessly spreads, fertilized by a toxic mixture of corporate and governmental dither and greed. Working from an unobtrusive screenplay by British TV scripter Jeffrey Caine, Meirelles makes his points convincingly, teasing out the secrets of weak and bullying men (among the limpest of whom are Justin's unreliable friend and diplomatic colleague, played by Danny Huston, and their frighteningly Perfect British Boss, played with high gloss by Bill Nighy), but never squanders attention away from the tragedy of epidemic disease and corruption. (Playing the opposite of limp, the ever-excellent Gerard McSorley from Bloody Sunday embodies a paragon of corporate thuggishness who's never more terrifying than when he's on the golf course.) There is, I realize, always the chance that such a serious, it's-good-for-you description makes The Constant Gardener sound like a lemonade glass of medicine. It's not. The movie is smart, serious, and adult about something that matters, but not at the expense of a kind of awful, sensual revelry as le Carré's capacious plot hurtles to its big finish. In flashback scenes of Justin and Tessa's life together, the chemistry between Fiennes and Weisz (previously paired in the tortured István Szabó film Sunshine) feels playfully sexy, which is not something I'd usually ascribe to Fiennes' default stance of proud hurt. Borne on lilting snatches of African song, The Constant Gardener gives a damn while giving good ''entertainment.'' P.S.: ''By comparison with the reality,'' le Carré explains in notes on the film, ''my story was as tame as a holiday postcard."