The Ghost Writer (2010) directed by Roman Polanskii
Viewed on July 14, 2019
Synopsis:
The film opens as a car ferry disembarks in a rainstorm. But one car has been abandoned, and the car is towed. The next morning, a body washes up on the beach.
In the bar, the Ghost is being urged by his friend Rick to take up the assignment of completing a memoir for a former British prime minister, Adam Lang. The manuscript is so bad that it has (apparently) killed the previous writer, Mike, who was assigned to the project.
The Ghost arrives at the offices of the publisher to be interviewed. He convinces them that he is the right man for the job despite having (or really, because he has) no knowledge or interest in politics. He is expected to collaborate with Lang by accompanying him on a US tour; the Ghost is expected to leave that night. As he is leaving the office, one of the interviewers gives him a manuscript from another client to read and get his opinion.
On his way home, he is accosted by two men who beat him and rob him of the manuscript.
Rick calls to tell him that he has negotiated a $250K deal. That night, at the airport, he sees news that Lang is involved in a scandal; he is allege to have illegally turned over our British citizens to the CIA who tortured them. One died.
After a long journey, the Ghost arrives at Lang's complex where he is given the only copy of the manuscript to read. It's dull. He meets Lang's wife, Ruth, who tells him during a walk on the beach that it was her idea to hire him. She takes him to the airport to meet Lang on his arrival.
The next day, the Ghost begins the project by interviewing Lang, starting with how he got into politics.
On a lunch break, he sees Lang in angry discussion on the phone.
Lang does not return immediately after lunch, leaving the Ghost alone in the room where he attempts to read the manuscript on the flash drive on which it is stored. A security alarm goes off when he tries to guess the password. Lang returns, and they continue the interview, but Lang does not want to include his student days as an actor in the book.
More bad news breaks on the scandal. Lang is being investigated by the Hague. He turns to the Ghost to write a reaction for the press. While dictating, he receives a call from the publisher. With the scandal brewing, the book is now a hot commodity. They want the manuscript complete in two weeks instead of four.
He goes back to his hotel to work on the manuscript. In the bar, he is questioned a stranger who wants to know Lang's whereabouts. When he goes to his room, he finds the door unlocked and some of the manuscript pages on the floor. He receives a call that he must check out immediately. He looks out the window to see the arrival of numerous news crews.
At the compound, angry protesters are at the gates. He is to stay in the compound.
Because reports have come that the Hague may place Lang on trial for war crimes, it is decided that he should go to Washington to get the support of the US administration. He may need to stay in the US as it does not recognize the authority of the World Court.
In his room, the Ghost finds, among his predecessor's effects, Lang's membership card and photographs from his time at Cambridge.
The Ghost goes for a bike ride, but it begins to rain. He takes shelter in the house of an old man who tell him that it is impossible that the currents could have taken the body from the ferry to the beach. In addition, a woman who saw some lights on the beach that night fell and is now in a coma. Mrs. Lang (Ruth) finds him and takes him home. The Ghost questions her about how he got involved in politics. Contrary to Lang's story in his memoirs that he got involved when he met her, the evidence shows that he became involved two years earlier. Ruth goes out in the rain to clear her head. When she returns, she awakens the Ghost and goes to bed with him. The next morning, he decides to leave and go back to the hotel. He takes with him the manuscript, which he is expressly forbidden to remove from the premises.
The GPS on the car insists on taking him to another destination, apparently the one that Mike was going to the night he was killed. He winds up at the estate of a professor whose name he recognizes from the photographs. He interviews the professor who claims not to know Lang well, despite the photographs and despite Lang's mentioning him in his memoirs. On the night Mike was killed, he and his wife were at a conference in Colorado.
When he leaves, he is followed by a car. He shakes his tail, and arrives at the fairy just before it is set to leave. The gates close, and he thinks he is safe, but the tailing car pulls up, and two men flashing badges are allowed in. The Ghost leaves the car, taking his bag with the manuscript with him. As soon as the ferry stars to pull out, he leaps to the dock and climbs over the fence, successfully eluding his pursuers.
He takes room in a motel, and calls up a number that was in Mike's effects, seeking help. While he is waiting for them to arrive, he does a quick Google search to find that Professor Emmet was a CIA operative who joined in 1971, when he was at Cambridge with Lang. The man who picks him up is RIchard Rycart, a minister whom Lang had fired and who has blown the whistle on him to the Hague. Mike was the one who gave him the documents. The clue point to the conclusion that Lang has been a CIA operative since ten, doing the bidding o the US government. Lang calls and offers to pick him up in his private jet.
On the jet, the Ghost tells him everything. He denies everything though he is shocked to find out that Mike was working for Ryckert.
Departing the airport, Lang is assassinated by a former soldier who blame Lang or his son's death in Afghanistan.
At the book party, the Ghost is surprised to see Prof. Emmett talking to Ruth. He is told that Ruth was Emmett's pupil at Cambridge. Rushing to the mailroom with the manuscript, the Ghost realizes that the first words of the chapters have a coded message: "Langs wife Ruth was recruited into the CIA by Prof. Paul Emmett of Cambridge University." She, not Lang, was the CIA operative. He sends this message to Ruth. As he leaves the building, he is run over by a car, and the manuscript pages are scattered to the winds.
Commentary:
Expertly crafted thriller, of the paranoid conspiracy variety. Polanski builds the suspense with scenes that make evocative use of the locations: the compound with its open architecture that, nonetheless, seems claustrophobic, the rainy beach, the seemingly abandoned hotel. The surprises seem fair. The clues are hidden in plain sight. And while it's not entirely believable, it makes more sense than most conspiracy thrillers. All the performances are excellent.
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