BY LOIS WADSWORTH
JAAP BUITENDIJK. FOCUS FEATURES, 2005.
Justin (Ralph Fiennes) and Tessa Quayle
(Rachel Weisz) in a happy moment.
Compelling Love Story
Meets Big Pharma in Africa
THE CONSTANT GARDENER: Directed by
Fernando Meirelles. Written by Jeffrey Caine, based
on the novel by John Le Carré. Produced by Simon
Channing Williams, Tracey Seaward. Executive pro-
ducers, Gail Egan, Robert Jones, Donald Ranvaud,
Jeff Abberley, Julia Blackman. Cinematography,
César Charlone. Production design, Mark Tildesley.
Editor, Claire Simpson. Costume design, Odile Dicks-
Mireaux. Starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.
With Danny Huston, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite,
Gerard McSorley, Hubert Koundé. Archie Panjabi,
Nick Reding. Focus Features, 2005. R. 129 minutes.
B
razilian filmmaker Fernando
Meirelles (City of God) directs this
excellent mainstream political
thriller based on John Le Carre’s novel of
the same name with a fiery compassion for
Third World societies wronged by the inter-
national exponents of a global economy.
This overarching theme embraces a love
story between Justin Quayle (Ralph
Fiennes), a reticent, by-the-books, foreign
intelligence bachelor and a life-loving, by-
any-means-necessary, political activist,
Tessa (Rachel Weisz).
From the moment Tessa is found
viciously murdered in remote Northern
Kenya early in the film, Quayle becomes
more like his beloved: involved, tenacious
and vigilant. He learns a lot about Tessa,
some of it devastating, but he is dedicated
to discovering the truth, wherever it may
take him.
The film highlights Africa’s grave health
problems and the international pharmaceu-
tical interests, which exploit (and kill) sick
people in developing countries to test-mar-
ket unapproved drugs. Meirelles doesn’t
squander the power of Le Carré’s story on
the white characters and their problems.
Rather, he uses Quayle’s quest for truth as a
metaphor, which heightens the film’s dis-
turbing, indelible images and makes the
plight of Africa’s poor more resonant.
Learning about Big Pharma, as it is
called in the film, Justin uncovers a crimi-
nal conspiracy that reaches into the highest
levels of governments inside and outside
Africa. This dangerous knowledge ensnares
him in a nightmarish world where nothing
is as he thought, while cold fury arms him
with the emotional, ethical and physical
courage to make Tessa’s work known to the
world.
I have to laugh when famous male film
critics (are there any other kind?) dissect
Fiennes’ sex appeal, which is apparently a
mystery to them. Fiennes’ film history as a
lover in two films — The English Patient
and The End of the Affair — sends women
all over the world to movies that offer him
the opportunity to express believable but
romantic desire, obsessive love, sensual
connection. To that audience, among whom
I count myself, The Constant Gardener
does not disappoint.
Fiennes and Weisz first worked together
in István Szabó’s acclaimed exploration of
the bloody 20th century as lived by one
Jewish family, Sunshine (2000). Fiennes
plays a character from each generation of
the family, and in one segment he is mar-
ried to Weisz. The actors succeed as steamy
lovers in The Constant Gardener in part
because their characters are near opposites.
Playful, earthy and joyous love scenes
appear as Justin’s memories in flashback,
the very elements absent in the film’s more
serious and tragic main story.
Supporting performers deliver outstand-
ing work, including Danny Huston as
Sandy Woodrow, Justin’s friend who is
drawn deeper into the cover up of Tessa’s
death than either of them can handle.
Likewise, Bill Nighy, who famously played
the comic Santa role in Love Actually, here
plays a witheringly proper English bureau-
crat, Sir Bernard Pellegrin, whose polite
façade hides a mean-spirited career freak.
Nighy’s work in HBO’s recent film, The
Girl in the Café, opposite Kelly
Macdonald, affirmed the actor’s versatility,
further confirmed by his darker work in this
film. Pete Postlethwaite also convincingly
plays a character who is not what he seems
to be. Gerard McSorley plays Sir Kenneth
Curtiss, a drug company executive who is
decidedly not a proper English gentleman,
despite bearing the title and privilege of
one.
The primary African actor is Hubert
Koundé, who plays Tessa’s colleague, Dr.
Arnold Bluhm, believed by many in both
the Kenyan and British communities to be
her lover. Koundé gives a strong perform-
ance as a medical activist who sees first-
hand the abuses and hypocrisies of Big
Pharma. Not making Koundé’s character
more central is one the film’s few missteps.
Beautifully shot by Uraguayan cine-
matographer César Charlone from a bal-
anced, smoothly designed script by Jeffrey
Caine, The Constant Gardener is that rare
cinematic delight — ravishing and intellec-
tually satisfying as well. Now playing at
Cinemark and Cinema World, it’s the first
of the big fall films to hit the screens. See it
with my very highest recommendations. ew
SEPTEMBER 8, 2005 21