I had lots of expectations for this movie. For one, this was a roman Polanski film, two the star cast just happened to include two of my most favorite actors, pierce brosnan and ewan mcgregor.The film begins in a very unusual sort of way with the type of background score that any casual movie goer would attribute to that of a gripping, dramatic Shakespearean thriller.polanski keeps us in the dark for quite some time(the first few minutes) till the point at which we are thrown head long into the shady world of the ultra powerful and shown a washed up corpse along the beach.
The movie's screenplay flows elegantly, unveiling gently the characters and the scenario with which the protagonist, a ghost writer, a very successful one at that, is confronted. The scene now shifts to the residence of the former prime minister of Britain Mr.adam Lang whose memoirs are to be finished in a month by the unnamed ghost writer. The director gives the audience a glimpse of the personal lives of real life politicians and how they are thrown one too many times into delicate, sensitive, jeopardizing situations involving their political image and how a dedicated team of experts save their employer's career from near total destruction through effective damage control measures. The ghost writer finds his feet soon and even goes to the length of actually rendering Adam’s response to allegations of war crimes smothered on him by Adam’s close aide and ex-foreign secretary whom Adam had on board his cabinet during his tenure as the British prime minister and whom he had eventually removed from office. Polanski’s rendition of Adam's wife Ruth's resentment towards the seemingly close relationship between Adam and his personal secretary is typical of a powerful politician's better half, yearning for her husband's unfaltering attention.
The Ghost writer starts researching Adam’s background and is startled to find out information pertaining to Adam’s early political life received by word of mouth from Adam himself turns out to be inconsistent with actual artifacts relating to Adam’s political career enclosed in an envelope and hidden away in a drawer by Adam’s ex-assistant cum ghost writer Mike McAra whose corpse which had been shown during the opening of the movie. The ghost writer probes further into the Mike McAra murder story and also makes a call to the number he found on the back of a photograph which was part of the artifacts found in the envelope. He becomes white with fear as Adam’s ex-foreign secretary picks up the phone on the other end and immediately disconnects the call. Meanwhile Ruth engages in a casual fling with the ghost writer which can be attributed to "revenge sex" more than anything else, aimed at soothing her wailing heart, believing the fling to be a 'screw you' to Adam.
The ghost writer pays a visit to Professor Paul Emmett whose name is mentioned in the rough draft of the memoirs and who often finds a place beside Adam in old photographs of Adam’s student life. He googles professor Emmett and finds out a connection between Professor Emmett and the CIA.
The ghost writer soon realizes that he is being followed and sends his 'would want to be captors' on a wild goose chase. He soon gets a grip of the situation and calls up rick rycart and narrates his predicament. Rick rycart confirms the ghost writer's worst fears and alleges that professor Emmett was a CIA undercover operative and Adam acted under his advice bending the U.K's policies regarding matters of international concern with a view of ensuring the U.S.A's best interests. Adam rings up the ghost writer and asks him to join him on his private jet on the way home for discussions regarding the memoirs, the ghost writer agrees apprehensively with the impending danger of being lured into a trap. He confronts Adam with his findings and Adam vehemently denies having any connections with Emmett and insists that he wasn’t anybody’s political puppet.
The plane lands and Adam is assassinated by a sharpshooter as he gets down from his plane and walks down towards the press. An alarm is raised as Adam’s entourage is swiftly evacuated for safety. The next day multiple political leaders including rick rycart express their condolences on the passing of adam.the ghost writer is coerced into finishing Adam’s memoirs hastily as the publication house believes that this would be the perfect time to launch the fallen leader's memoirs and that the memoirs would be his 'voice from the grave’. The ghost writer is approached by Adam’s grieving personal secretary in Adam’s book launch function. He casually gets to know about some secret buried ‘in the beginnings' as opposed to some secret buried 'in the beginning' of McAra's rough draft of Adam’s memoirs. He takes this cue and finds out that each word of the first paragraph of each opening chapter of the book together make up a sentence that reveals that Adam’s wife Ruth is a close aide of her tutor, professor Emmett who in turn works for the CIA and was responsible for using Ruth to influence Adam and twist his decision making in favor of the U.S.A during Adam’s tenure as U.K's prime minister. The ghost writer passes a note to Ruth who makes the key note speech. Ruth is seen as being appalled after reading the note. As the ghost writer exits the building and crosses the street a speeding car hits the ghost writer and the title graphic of the movie passes by.
This movie is a gripping account of the shady world that politicians live in. The excellent narrative immerses the audience completely into the world that the protagonist perceives and how powerful men change the circumstances they are in almost willfully. This is a good movie and certainly worth your time. I would say that this is far from being polanski's best but a great movie nevertheless!
