When a ghost writer – “the ghost” – (Ewan McGregor) takes on the biography of former Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) he convinces the publishers that “heart” is what sells autobiographies. But soon McGregor finds that there’s a lot more to the story than his insanely tight two month deadline.For starters there’s the sexually suggestive assistant (Kim Cattrall), an intelligent, vulnerable and misunderstood wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams) and a host of other odd characters including a chum from Cambridge University named Paul Emmett (Tom Wilkinson) whose name keeps popping up and whose photo is found taped to the underside of the guest room drawer. The nice thing about this film is that you feel you’re in very capable hands (albeit the hands of Roman Polanski). This is his palette of dark, grey and rainy skies where the world has gone seemingly mad and “the ghost” must work his way through mazes, seductions, traps, and clues that complicate his pending book’s real story. This is McGregor’s movie, his most tamed and vulnerable performance to date, and it’s Brosnan’s too with his Tony Blair-esque qualities, his charming smile and cool-as-a-cucumber yet calculating ways. Even the way he jiggles his Scotch on ice suggests more than we bargained for. Wilkinson as Emmett is genius, abrasive, and high brow, leaving our Ghost writer as cold as the silver spoon undoubtedly up Emmett’s arse. Each character has something to hide besides their war crimes, and it might be the fact that they don’t make movies like this anymore. Four tiaras
