accessAtlanta

'The Constant Gardener' cultivates deep interest

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The problem with message movies is audiences often kill the messenger by not going to see them.

Hopefully that won't happen to the excellent new picture "The Constant Gardener," based on a John Le Carre best seller and directed with intelligence and measured intensity by Fernando Meirelles. His Brazilian film "City of God" earned Meirelles a best director Oscar nomination — and a place on nearly every 10-best list across the country.

Focus Features

'The Constant Gardener'

A-

The verdict: A thoughtful thriller blessed with excellent actors and an inspired director.

Director: Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Archie Panjabi, Bill Nighy
Run time: 129 minutes
Release date: August 31, 2005
Rating: R for language, some violent images and sexual content/nudity.
See showtimes

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

"The Constant Gardener," which is Meirelles' English-language debut, doesn't crackle and pop like his earlier triumph. It's a more thoughtful piece, grounded in great acting, brilliant directing and a timely theme: how the giant pharmaceutical companies are exploiting the already-beleaguered African population.

Ralph Fiennes stars as Justin Quayle. As the title suggests, he's a quiet, conservative man, content to cultivate his garden and not go looking for trouble. Trouble is, Justin's a midlevel British diplomat stationed in Kenya, where trouble often comes unbidden.

We first meet Justin in England as he's waving goodbye to his wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), who's headed to Africa with her co-worker — and, some say, lover — Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Kounde) to expose the drug labels' dirty dealing.

Tessa is a passionate idealist, always at the ready to go to battle on the behalf of the have-nots. To Justin's more jaded colleagues, well-played by Bill Nighy and Danny Huston, she's a dangerous live wire, likely to pursue her do-gooding at the very moment it would do them the least good. As far as the top brass is concerned, she is, well, inappropriate. And Tessa revels in being seen as such.

Unfortunately, her actions have tragic consequences, which transform Justin from a rational, hands-off cog in the bureaucratic machine to an impassioned man on a mission. And the more he uncovers, the more in peril he becomes, as the massive forces of corporate greed, international corruption and global indifference combine to block his efforts.

It's important that Tessa isn't portrayed as a saint. Her connection to groups with names like Women for Life is slyly amusing in that it gives the higher-ups another reason to dismiss her. Her insistence that she go to the same hospital as the locals is admirable, but it also smacks a bit of naivete and showboating.

Tessa's complexity enhances the film's impact. She may be a flawed heroine, but she's a heroine nonetheless. The pharmaceutical companies are happily dispensing outdated drugs; it's a tax write-off and a public relations ploy. More infuriating, they are trying out untested drugs on the Kenyans, whom they see as disposable people.

Just a few months earlier, the staid Justin may have muttered something about "bad form," but he wouldn't have done anything about it. His transformation into someone willing to work outside the rules, to look into the heart of a darkness supported and sustained by so-called civilized nations and supposedly benign companies, is compelling and unnerving.

We're emotionally invested in Justin and Tessa — at times, their relationship suggests the one between Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in "The Way We Were." She's the outspoken activist, and he's the increasingly marginalized spouse, meant to be her buffer and apologist. Until, that is, fate intervenes.

Few actors do haunted as well as Fiennes. Or ambivalent. Or distracted. After inexplicably turning up in questionable drivel like "Maid in Manhattan," Fiennes seems to be back on track. He gives an Oscar-worthy portrayal, holding us with his quivering half-smile and his wounded eyes. Weisz may have an Oscar chance as well. Her Tessa is a vibrant, impressive woman who simply can't leave well enough alone — especially when something isn't "well enough" in the least.

Meirelles gives "The Constant Gardener" an urgency yet never loses sight of the human aspect of Le Carre's story. When was the last time you choked up in the middle of a spy thriller?