The Constant Gardener
(2005)
A not-quite-great John Le Carré adaptation, but one that confirms that filmmaker’s have been
consistently much more astutely than they did in previous decades (in the last decade
or so we have seen this, Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy and The Tailor of Panama).
Director Fernando Meirelles boarded this
project after his reputation-making (internationally at least) City of God. It further cemented his
status as a thoughtful, intelligent filmmaker tackling big themes with skill
and insight. Since then, he’s been tarnished by falling short of his
aspirations in Blindness and 360. But what he brings to the genteel,
reserved world of Le Carré is immediacy
and verve. Meirelles’ verité style,
adopting handheld camera for the most part, clashes productively with the icy
callousness of corporate decision-making. It’s only in the final reveal that
one is left with a slight sense of cop-out, that the apparent triumph (on
whatever level) isn’t true to the desperation of world it depicts.
Perhaps such cynicism should be tempered by
the knowledge that Le Carré based his
story on an actual case in Nigeria, in which Pfizer trialed a drug that left
children disabled or dead. But the story here presents an impenetrable blockade
of collusion and threat from corporate and government interests, one that
suggests no respite. In his novel, the author commented that the fiction he
presented was as “tame as a holiday
postcard” in comparison to reality.
Unlike the same year’s The Interpreter, Meirelles is happy to set his narrative within an
actual country. Ralph Fiennes plays Justin Quayle, a British diplomat in Kenya,
whose wife and her doctor friend are investigating the covert testing of a TB
drug. When Tessa (Rachel Weisz), and then her friend, turn up murdered, Justin
pursues his own inquires. As he uncovers
evidence of corruption at every juncture his own life comes under threat.
Jeffrey Caine’s screenplay eases the
thriller aspects in slowly, with the first half of the film more resonantly
concerned with Jeffrey’s reflection on his relationship with Tessa. Fiennes
essays the slightly silly, slightly embarrassing and emotionally reserved posh
British chap immaculately, such that it’s quite clear that this will be another
of Le Carré’s unlikely
protagonists.
Our understanding of Tessa who, as
subjectively depicted by Justin, appears to be one of those impassioned people
whose cause is justification for trampling on her personal relationships, is a
masterful lesson in shifting perspectives. We’re onto her from the off, a young
activist taking up with someone who represents everything she apparently loathes.
A ticket to her furthering her mission, it seems. And then there’s the affair
everyone knows she’s having. And her
prostituting herself with the British High Commissioner (Danny Huston). So,
when this is all flipped on its head, we the audience feel as guilty as Justin.
Well, not quite, as Justin being told the truth can never have quite the same
impact for the audience as his earlier remembrances. But it’s an effective
storytelling device, and both Fiennes and Weisz put considerable emotional heft
into their parts (Weisz was actually pregnant during filming, hence the
believable “prosthetics” in her nude scenes).
The supporting cast includes strong work from
Huston, but also Bill Nighy as a slippery superior to Justin, Donald Sumpter,
Archie Panjabi and Pete Postlethwaite. Mereilles’ regular cinematographer Cesar
Charlone gives the film a saturated, arid intensity; the use of handheld
camera, and employment of devices such as surveillance footage, adds a growing
unease to Jeffrey’s journey of discovery.
It’s worth contrasting Gardener with The Interpreter
again for a moment. Both take Africa as their starting point, but the latter
film constructs a fantasy in a make-believe country where the intervention of
the UN can set all things to rights. The President in that film is set out as an
individual who once espoused freedom and justice but became the tyrannical
despot he so loathed. This, however, is set out in an all too obvious moment of
speechifying by one of the main characters.
There is a thematically similar moment in Gardener, but it sets its sights much
lower and therefore hits its target more accurately. Justin confronts Huston’s
character on his involvement in the conspiracy and his deference to the British
government’s corporate masters (pharmaceutical appeasing means jobs), noting
that he has become everything he stood against. It’s a believable moment, where
we see how one’s erosion of standards and increase in relative justifications
can lead to a complete loss of moral compass. In direct contrast to The Interpreter, Gardener is also willing to take a swipe at the UN as an embodiment
of global justice and salvation; it’s just another corporate body like any
other.
However, what really raises the film is
it’s emotional content. The injustice that Justin feels he has done to Tessa
through doubting her drives him to his fate. One that he is at peace with. He
is not so much consumed with her broader political and humanitarian quest, but
he assumes its colours in order to right this perceived wrong. A charge could
be made that The Constant Gardener
falls prey to the “white westerner telling the African’s story” (Blood Diamond is a particularly grinding
example of this), and it’s a fair point. Although, perhaps, the film needs to establish
itself from Justin’s perspective in order to recognise his own and, by extension
our, complicity in the whole process of exploitation and profit.
So the final, literal, sermon comes across
as an unwelcome cheap shot across the bows. It’s so unsubtle that Mereilles must have been aware of the connotations
of the scene, but the effect is pat and diminishing of the film’s overall
impact. Far better to have left the audience aware of the likely outcome than
to embellish the tale with a grandstanding flourish. It was probably seen as a
necessary balance to what might otherwise be seen as a downer ending, but the
film deserved something with a bit more of Justin’s reserve, as opposed to
Teresa’s bombast.
****
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