The Constant Gardener (2005)
Country: GER/GB
Technical: col/scope 129m
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Hubert Koundé, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Gerard McSorley
Synopsis:
A foreign office aid attaché meets a committed charity worker who marries him and follows him to Kenya. There her investigations into the covert practices of pharmaceutical companies and their financial associates lead to her death in a roadside killing. Shattered, her husband starts digging and discovers that locals are being unwittingly used as guinea pigs for a new TB drug.
Review:
Meirelles brings his close-up, febrile shooting style to this flashback tale of intrigue. It rises above its conspiracy leanings by first, concentrating on the inner life and motivation of its protagonist, his bewilderment, grief and fearlessness when he learns the truth and secondly, by making its heavies into human beings (hero has head-to-heads with both). Indeed everyone, from Huston's informant to the Spy who offers a way out, is played with sweaty conviction and compassion. One might only cavil that the plight of the natives is lost amid the all-encompassing outrage of our heroine's murder.
Country: GER/GB
Technical: col/scope 129m
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Hubert Koundé, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Gerard McSorley
Synopsis:
A foreign office aid attaché meets a committed charity worker who marries him and follows him to Kenya. There her investigations into the covert practices of pharmaceutical companies and their financial associates lead to her death in a roadside killing. Shattered, her husband starts digging and discovers that locals are being unwittingly used as guinea pigs for a new TB drug.
Review:
Meirelles brings his close-up, febrile shooting style to this flashback tale of intrigue. It rises above its conspiracy leanings by first, concentrating on the inner life and motivation of its protagonist, his bewilderment, grief and fearlessness when he learns the truth and secondly, by making its heavies into human beings (hero has head-to-heads with both). Indeed everyone, from Huston's informant to the Spy who offers a way out, is played with sweaty conviction and compassion. One might only cavil that the plight of the natives is lost amid the all-encompassing outrage of our heroine's murder.
Country: GER/GB
Technical: col/scope 129m
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Hubert Koundé, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Gerard McSorley
Synopsis:
A foreign office aid attaché meets a committed charity worker who marries him and follows him to Kenya. There her investigations into the covert practices of pharmaceutical companies and their financial associates lead to her death in a roadside killing. Shattered, her husband starts digging and discovers that locals are being unwittingly used as guinea pigs for a new TB drug.
Review:
Meirelles brings his close-up, febrile shooting style to this flashback tale of intrigue. It rises above its conspiracy leanings by first, concentrating on the inner life and motivation of its protagonist, his bewilderment, grief and fearlessness when he learns the truth and secondly, by making its heavies into human beings (hero has head-to-heads with both). Indeed everyone, from Huston's informant to the Spy who offers a way out, is played with sweaty conviction and compassion. One might only cavil that the plight of the natives is lost amid the all-encompassing outrage of our heroine's murder.