The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener (Director: Fernando Meirelles)














THE CONSTANT GARDENER won 1 Oscar:

Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz

The Brazilian Meirelles made what has proven to be the best movie of the decade so far in City of God. This is based on John Le Carre's novel and adapted by Jeffrey Caine, who wrote Goldeneye and really hadn't been heard from since.

It's very difficult, I believe, for a director to come out with something that is so amazing that he might handicap his future work. It happened with M. Night Shyamalan when he did Unbreakable after The Sixth Sense. It happened to Tarantino when he did Jackie Brown after Pulp Fiction. It is a challenge for someone to try to block an earlier film out of mind when watching the next one.

Meirelles has chosen some heady stuff for his followup, this involving diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) who falls in love with beautiful activist Tessa (Rachel Weisz). As their marriage seems to be crumbling due to a variety of reasons--the main one involving Tessa's secrecy that seems like she's having an affair but is only a function of a job that Justin does not understand completely, Tessa is brutally murdered in Kenya. This leads Quayle to go digging for the reasons why. It's very Fugitive-esque, because the villains here are big drug companies. Key figures are played by Danny Huston, Pete Postlethwaite, and Bill Nighy.

This is almost purely a message movie, one that exposes the horror of Africa, that the troubles are more complex than a Live Aid concert will tell you. As in City of God, Meirelles exposes the underbelly of a beautiful locale, that "hidden in plain view" is sickness, poverty, and crime mixed in with breathtaking vistas. How exciting you may find this kind of movie is up to you--On Deadly Ground is a movie that I thought of while watching this--which is on the other side of the tracks in quality compared to this. I'm just saying that the mystery isn't all that compelling, and you'll be given a great dose of reality that is depressing, which is exactly the message the movie aims for.

So, why should you see this movie? It depends on how much of a film geek you are. Meirelles is on the level of Spielberg as far as I'm concerned. The guy knows how to shoot a movie with verve. His cinematographer, Cesar Charlone, who got nominated for City of God, should get nominated for this as well--the colors are beautiful and the schemes are well-thought out. The acting is top-notch--we get great returns from Fiennes, who has been wallowing in little-seen garbage indies and over-seen garbage mainstream films, and Weisz. It's just not the kind of story that lends itself to being called a classic, and you can't fault that really because it's told exactly the way it is supposed to be told. But in the end, it may leave you wanting more.