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The Constant Gardener review
2005.10.08 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Reviews | by Andrew Cole
Do you love me for me or for my diplomatic access? [official site] |
John Le Carré knows his way around a story of intrigue. He knows those little misunderstandings, those things accidentally overheard and things left unsaid that make people doubt each other. And he knows that people are flawed and small and that they only become big when they do big things. Good things or bad things. The Constant Gardener captures that sensibility and puts in on-screen in a remarkably intimate portrayal of a marriage that has all the intrigue of the diplomo-corporate scandal that looms in the background.
[Le Carré] knows that people are flawed and small and that they only become big when they do big things. Good things or bad things. |
Writer Jeffery Caine and director Fernando Meirelles do a terrific job of capturing the essence of Le Carré while keeping the film about the relationship between Ralph Fiennes's character of Justin Quayle and Rachel Weisz's character of Tessa Quayle. Justin is a low-level diplomatic attaché sent to Kenya with 1,000 years of English reserve weighing him down. Tessa is his nattering, overly pushy activist girlfriend (meet cute: she berates him at a conference; he consoles her when the crowd jeers her) whose volunteer nature leads her to volunteer to be his wife so she can go to Africa. This is no way to start a marriage, but things seem to go well for them except when Tessa confronts warlords and foot-dragging bureaucrats in a very un-English way. But Justin so loves his wife—and knows that she is right—that he can't bear to reign her in.
Justin is a low-level diplomatic attache sent to Kenya with 1,000 years of English reserve weighing him down. |
The central story, it's no secret to say, is that Tessa is horribly murdered in the desert, and Justin must try—for the sake of his own sanity and integrity—to figure out exactly why. The trail he follows leads him into secret second life that Tessa led apart from him. Justin is a gardener by choice, and Tessa seems to have had a hobby of her own.
Much of the relationship plays out in flashback as Justin tracks Tessa thru the clues she's left—the ones that haven't been ransacked and confiscated by Kenyan officials with their own agenda. Justin's contacts give him some immunity that Tessa and her native doctor friend did not enjoy, leading to wonder what they could have accomplished if only she had confided in him... and only if he had had the guts to listen and act.
As a result, both Justin and Tessa are made real and tangible characters, brilliantly brought to life by Fiennes and Weisz. |
But her death does spur him to action, albeit in a blundering, confused, and largely inept way. He fears what he will find, not only in terms of conspiracy, but emotionally. Was she having an affair? Did she even love him or was she using him as a springboard for her true love: activism? He's embarrassed to imagine such thing. In her personal effects, we learn that she was embarrassed by her own behavior. As a result, both Justin and Tessa are made real and tangible characters, brilliantly brought to life by Fiennes and Weisz.
[T]hese are matters of style that worked for the subject even if I wouldn't want to see more than a couple of movies a year that used them. |
Call it slow, call it hand-wringing, call its camera work jarring, but these are matters of style that worked for the subject even if I wouldn't want to see more than a couple of movies a year that used them. There are missteps, but not the sort that trip you up much during the watching. There is at least one crucial Tessa scene—a misleading one at that—that we the audience see but which Justin has no knowledge of and which the characters involved would never divulge. If we can see this, why not other scenes that explain the mystery fully?
But the only serious misstep is the ending. Justin may be a changed man, but he's still got a Englishman's stiff upper lip. Conspiracies like this really do happen in real life. Endings like this don't.
That doesn't change the wonderful quality of the movie and certainly doesn't detract from terrific performances by its principals and by its supporters Bill Nighy and Donald Sumpter, who must be believably charming and simultaneously dislikable.
The film is, of course, dark and carries a message. It's not the sort of thing that American audiences normally flock to see, but it deserves to be seen. |
The film is, of course, dark and carries a message. It's not the sort of thing that American audiences normally flock to see, but it deserves to be seen.
Brazilian Director Meirelles also directed the widely-acclaimed (and Andrew-Cole-missed) City of God but not much else. Adapter Caine comes from television work and had his only big league at-bats with Golden Eye and Rory O'Shea was Here. The Constant Gardener is top-notch, emotionally-mature, and cinematically-mature work that speaks volumes for their futures.
And watch out for that Le Carré guy too. He's gonna be big.
f e e d b a c k
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