Roman Polanski's New Movie, "The Ghost Writer"

You know, I tried starting this review a few times, with some stuff about why I generally don't like political thrillers, and how this film rises above those problems and manages to still deliver. But that's really misleading. Because really, this movie doesn't deliver on the political thriller side of things. It manages to pack a pretty severe punch despite that, and I'll talk about that at the end. But first, I'll talk about the political thriller aspects that this film manages to do either wrong or boringly.

First of all, when filmmakers want to inject some realism into their story about politics, they try to bring in real people or archival footage or news networks that we all recognize. Not only does this film use almost zero archival footage, it uses only fake news networks with news segments that don't even look that real). Worse, we even see a Condoleezza Rice lookalike at one point. It's really dissapointing when a political movie that is supposed to feel either set in the real world or one that is believable in its difference fgrom the real world, this movie feels like it takes place in the universe of a bad episode of "24." Not quite real enough.

The next big mistake is kind of artless exposition. Granted, it's hard to make a web browsing / google searching sequence feel interesting. This movie makes a strong effort but still falls slightly short. Basically all of the inner workings of the political intrigue are revealed via web browser and voice over in one scene.

Another big mistake: the political message being pretty undefined or hard to follow. "The Informant" suffers from this one, and "Michael Clayton" gets it almost exactly right. This movie clearly has a message about how power corrupts or how governments use people to accomplish things, but it isn't clearly encapsulated.

So the film suffers from a lot of the usual flaws of political intrigue movies. But here's the thing: in terms of craft, this movie is almost perfect.

The camera work is fluid, interesting, and surprising. The pacing is masterful. The suspenseful scenes are REALLY suspenseful. Beautiful color, composition, settings, and music. And the performances by Olivia Williams (my new favorite actress and "Dollhouse" star!) and Ewan McGregor are really nuanced and interesting. And despite how unclear it is why we should care about the plot's resolution, we still care a huge amount about the characters at the center of this whole episode. Polanski has managed to make a film that feels important even while it feels like it hasn't said anything.

So I guess all I can say is if you are way into messages or important stories or political commentary, the movie is a failure. But if you are into the craft of film-making and how well stories are told, the movie is a huge success. I'm way into great filmcraft, so for me that makes it an 8 out of 10.

Note that I scored this one higher than "The Departed." Yeah, it's a lot like that movie, but really a lot more interestingly put together.