Spooks, from both the metaphysical and espionage worlds, cast an ominous presence over “The Ghost Writer,” but it’s the underlying parallels to its author’s real life that prove most haunting.
Like the disgraced British prime minister at his film’s core, Roman Polanski is a maligned man forced to live in exile for refusing to answer to the crimes of which he is accused. And it’s interesting to read between the lines trying to discover how much of the story mimics the director’s own experiences as a social pariah for the past 30-odd years.
That’s just the beginning, though, of a multi-layered thriller involving murder, intrigue and political corruption at the highest levels. It’s as gripping as it is timely, with its satirical darts aimed directly at the black hearts of the men and women of power who’ve sold their souls in the fight against terror.
It makes for an experience as cathartic and eye-opening as the director’s Oscar-winning “The Pianist,” another story that hit close to home for the Holocaust survivor.
Regardless of what you may think of Polanski, it’s hard to not be affected by the aura of isolation and distrust that surrounds his surrogate, Adam Lang, the former PM shrewdly played by Pierce Brosnan.
With the looming threat of indictments for war crimes related to his involvement in CIA-sanctioned torture, Lang, equal parts Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney, has fled to Martha’s Vineyard, where he knows he’s safe from extradition.
It’s not much of a life, though, holed up in a fortress-like cottage under tight security and the vengeful eyes of anti-war protesters crowded around his front gate like hungry wolves.
Not that it’s any more peaceful inside the walls of that metaphorical prison, incarcerated with his disapproving Hillary-esque wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), and voluptuous chief of staff mistress, Amelia (Kim Cattrall).
There’s a palpable air of mistrust throughout the house, and you’re convinced just about everyone is up to something other than the business at hand, which is putting the finishing touches on a memoir temporarily stalled by the suicide of Lang’s original ghost writer.
Who’s a friend, who’s a foe, who’s on the level, who isn’t? Polanski and his co-screenwriter Robert Harris (adapting the latter’s novel, “The Ghost”), to their credit, always keep you guessing, as Ewan McGregor, once again playing the gullible Everyman, attempts to unravel a plethora of secrets and cover-ups involving the Langs.
