My recent trip to watch Polanski’s The Ghost was provoked by the very latest in marketing techniques which the Barbican Centre now use; Twitter. Further more it was all the more appealing to go along as Olivia Williams, who plays a star role in the film, would be doing a Questions & Answers session afterward.
At 18:00 the film duly started without trailers, without commercials and Kevin Spacey subtly promoting Orange. Ewan McGregor makes the first appearance as an Estuary accented (poor attempt) individual who is tasked with writing the memoirs of the ex British Prime Minister Adam Lang. There’s a clear resemblance in personality, and to some extent appearance, of the ex PM actor Pierce Brosnan to Tony Blair and the wife, played by Olivia Williams, who carries occasional traits of Cherie Blair. Kim Cattrall’s role is as a tension sparking assistant to Adam.
Throughout, the film cinematography is almost always set in an overcast, heavily wet state. Polanski definitely made some heavy use of the rain machines for this film. And so to the storyline which itself is an adaptation of Robert Harris’s novel. Tony Blair, hm..hm.. sorry Adam Lang is accused of war crimes. His pad is a futuristic, high security house located on a remote island somewhere off the coast of New England. He flies to Washington hopeful of rescuing his reputation.
Next in the line up of British political figures is Richard Rycart who attempts at being a Robin Cook figure in the process. In my personal opinion I found his performance rather over cooked and totally out of place in the film. His script and manner of speech came across as unnatural and misdirected.
In conclusion I thought this film had a good, solid storyline that was understandable, well portrayed and framed relatively well. My favourite of all the characters was Olivia’s role as Lang’s wife; Rufe. During the Questions and Answers section afterward she commented on her efforts to study and play out traits of Cherie Blair. All credit to Olivia for making it back to London in time for this Q&A session following a lengthy journey across land & sea following disruption caused by the Iceland ash clouds.
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