A widower is determined to get to the bottom of a potentially explosive secret involving his wife's murder, big business, and corporate corruption.
Ralph Fiennes: Justin Quayle
Rachel Weisz: Tessa Quayle
Powerful, emotional and political Constant Gardner is hard for me to watch due to it's material yet i couldn't look away. It had me crying and hurting inside and all from the journey of one man trying desperately to find an answer to his wife's demise. I mean it's a nightmare and a love story that sadly is severed but you still feel through flashbacks that there is a connection.
Brilliant acting from its two lead roles Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, two of the best of my heart and this country. Ralph's performance and accent as Justin is top standards while Weisz as Tessa shines like she did in Fountain and shows a performance worthy of the Oscar she plucked from her emotionally charged portrayal told sadly but effectively in past tense. The romantic portion of the film was immortalized by the two characters Justin and Tessa, (Ralph & Rachel). Their first meeting was dynamically presented as Tessa was a social activist heckling Justin as he was making a political speech. When the hall was cleared, however, it was Justin who was actually comforting Tessa after her outburst. The juxtaposition of the placid, passive Justin versus the fervent, hyper-kinetic Tessa was brilliantly established in that opening scene.
The strands of thriller and social realism are inextricably tied together in the film. As a whodunit, The Constant Gardener seeks to uncover what actually happened to Justin and Tessa on their African journey. At the same time, the main culprit that emerges is the heavy hand of greed as the pharmaceutical companies exploit helpless victims of tuberculosis for the purpose of testing and marketing an experimental drug. At one point in the film, it is disclosed to Justin that the pharmaceutical industry is no different than arms dealers.
This film truly rewards its audience as it works on so many levels. Like Crash you won't be able to stop pondering over every thing you've just seen. The politics here are engaging and bound to stir up even the most complacent viewer. What's even more amazing is that all of the timely political discourse and subsequent thriller aspects of the film,courtesy of the source material, John Le Carre's novel, are wrapped up in an immortal romance. We the audience join Fiennes on his journey across Africa, and we rediscover the love story between he and his wife that ties the film in a poetic realism usually reserved for movies with much less on their minds.
To top it off, it's all delivered in the maddeningly genius Meirelles style that took critics and audiences by storm in his debut masterpiece City of God. We have the shaky hand-held camera darting through vibrant and colorful third-world locales juxtaposed with jaw-droppingly gorgeous aerial photography of Africa in all its glory. Meirelles again shows us he is a true artist and visionary willing to show both the shocking beauty and abject horror of the people and places that populate his films. Again he delivers a message that people are doing horrible things to each other, everywhere.
With City of God he seemed to be saying the only hope is to document and record it. The Constant Gardener makes that argument again and takes it one brilliant step forward. We may not be able to stop a war or a huge global injustice, but we do have the power to help one person at a time. It takes a courageous film to make such a statement, and a brilliant film-maker to deliver it, and that's just what The Constant Gardener achieves.
Fine performances that reside in Constant Gardner not only come from it's two leads but come from Bill Nighy who manages not to be funny, Danny Houston who's in loads of good films recently, and Hubert Kounde who proves it's the quiet ones you got to watch.
Constant Gardner hurts to watch, performances yes it's five stars, but i think it's a movie that is all to real, and for me that hits to close to the mark, to life. Losing a loved one is a very hard thing for me and to watch another man go through that, it hurts so much and sets me off, until I'm a quivering mess.
The hopelessness, the injustice and that sometimes your enemy, the ones you were fighting are right back at home. In this regard CG is very clever and it's message hits home with a bitter aftertaste and a sharp pain tearing point.
Don't think i could watch this too often due to its realistic and then rather sad finish but it's a masterpiece nonetheless.
Like that last gun shot and blackness, Constant Gardner has one shot, and by heck it takes it!
Very deep intense movie about what is going on Kenya and Multinational drug comany. Bring your tissues cause you defiantly will cry in this one it's a truly sad story....
The title of this film had really thrown me and it wasn't until I read the synopsis I realised that this film sounded good.
Highly political and some powerful viewing, Ralph Fiennes has a very natural acting ability. Rachel Weiss did seem to come across a bit 'Kate Winslett' in this, but was still very good.
One to get the concentration working an yet another powerful film to be set in Africa.
this movie has an interesting story and certainly carries an important message and Ralph Fiennes (being one of my favourite actors) certainly delivers a wonderful performance but ultimately all things considered this movie is just boring
I loved Rachel Weisz & Ralph Fiennes!! I thought it was really good how well the movie flowed, without blatant usual explanation of flashbacks or times. Even though Rachel Weisz won the Oscar, I was still blown away. Also nominated for Oscars in Editing, Original Music, and Adapted Screenplay.
A film about mystery, love, betrayal, and conspiracies.
After City of God, Fernando Meirelles proves us here that he's one of the best directors nowadays.
The story is very touching but quite ambiguous ; is it a political thriller ? a Love story ? a Drama ? well you get a little bit of each.
Fiennes and Weisz are really convincing.
Great performances by Fiennes and Weisz, but Danny Houston is always fun to watch. I was a really big fan of City of God and the director didn't let me down here either. A lot of people have trouble with the ending, but I thought it was touching and effective.
The story of a man who falls in love and doesn't want to face the truth of his wife's infidelity...or...the story of man avenging his wife's murder because she found out too much about crooked pharmaceutical companies testing drugs on poor African people. Or both. There's a lot to follow here and the movie is overlong with a lot of dialogue and story to pay attention to, but it's worth it in the end. Ralph Fiennes was due for a Best Actor nomination for this role as a British diplomat, but Rachel Weisz did get one and deserved it. Boring at times, but worth the watch if you're into really really deep dramas. Seems to have continued the recent trend of movies being filmed in Africa...this generation's New York for filmmaking.
Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weiz stars in a most controversial film that has been both scrutinized and criticized in every way that it is possible.
What makes this movie so intriguing is that it actually shows a lot of near dark truths to what is happening and what has been happening in Africa.
Even though the novel was released in 2001 (as a fiction), I cant help but think that theres some sort of indirect storytelling in the movie, say, a black bag story about Pfizers controversy in Africa?
Meirelles adds to this poetry-like movie a stunning direction and a mesmerizing photography, that add power and beauty at the same time to this strong story about fraud and social injustice in the most unfair times and geographical areas. All of my possible thumbs up :)
Muy buena pelicula!! Ralph Fiennes hace una excelente actuación y Rachel Weisz también una de sus mejores actuaciones.. La pelicula es bastante emotiva.. la trama está muy bien llevada.
Tim Donohue: Leave this Justin. Go home. Justin Quayle: I can't go home. Tessa was my home.
A political thriller and a romantic drama, from Fernando Meirelles, the director of City of God, who once again does not just show the story but the surroundings and the environment that these people live in through his visual style.
The story involves the murder of a British diplomat's wife, prompting him to find out the truth, which leads to revelations about a pharmaceutical company. During this time he moves between Europe and Africa, encountering various friends and foes.
Ralph Fiennes is great as a man who tries to uncover the mystery of his wife's death and becomes more in love with her as he does so. Rachel Weisz is also very good, shown in flashbacks, working her way to uncover a conspiracy, while trying to keep her husband away from it, because of her love for him. Good supporting work from Danny Huston and Bill Nighy as well.
A great score and cinematography give this movie a very good tone and feel, working well with how the story reveals itself.
The editing style of this film works well in bringing all of the pieces together, which works well in bringing us closer to the characters as well as making it a satisfying if somewhat emotionally exhausting film.
Very good.
Tessa Quayle: I thought you spies knew everything. Tim Donohue: Only God knows everything. He works for Mossad.
Visually beautiful. Emotionally exhausting. Grand acting. A challenge to society's conscience. These are the stories I wish journalists would grab and follow - not some troubled "star's" underwear or lack thereof. It's really a good movie, but it left me very sad at the condition of our world.
I found this movie extremely confusing at first but satisfying in the end. (Part of the problem was that many of the male actors looked the same, I think.) The cinematography is some of the best and most interesting I've seen in a long time. And who doesn't love a good mystery? In the end, I found the film to be enjoyable with an important social message but more disjointed than it needed to be and marketed completely wrong. I ended up asking myself, "What's happening here?" way more often than I would have liked.
The cinematography of this film makes up for its overall disjointed feeling. This is most definitely not a "spy thriller" as the jacket suggests. It's instead a plot full of diplomacy, scandal, and ambivalent lovers. The structure of it feels like it's trying to make itself into an epic, as it forsakes a linear storyline for the in media res approach, with flashbacks, flash-forwards, and all other kinds of director-ambitiousness. Ralph Fiennes is a very subtle actor, and that's very much played-up in this film. He's a great foil to the Tessa character. Overall, though, this film is consistently disappointing. I kept expecting a Tessa infidelity subplot to be crucial, but it wasn't. I kept expecting a lot, and I didn't get it. This one gets a solid B-
Stops short of condemning completely pharmaceutical practices in Africa, but that isn't the point of the film. A well executed story of how standing for something, be it conscience, justice, or love, is worth whatever it costs.
Mitten in den Verschwörungstheorien, dass die zivilisierte, weisse Welt die Dritte Welt als Experimentgebiet ausnützt, wurde ein authentisches Beziehungsdrama eingebettet. Beide Storystränge ergänzen sich sehr gut und zeiegn, dass globale Probleme nur auf lokalen Ebenen ausgetragen werden und dass nur 2-3 Menschen für den Tod von 1000den von Menschen verantwortlich sind.
Disjointed - even allowing for the flashbacks. Has periods of good drama interspersed with almost travelogue-like sequences. Still, it's a le Carre and he ties up the ending nicely.
A riveting, first-rate edge of your seat spy thriller. Gripping, unforgettable and electrifying. Ralph Fiennes gives a truly outstanding performance. Rachel Weisz is truly sensational. It's both an passionate love story and intriguing political drama. Compelling and brilliant. A hard-hitting, sensational, explosive and original entertainment. It will have you grabbing your seat in intrigue and excitment till the very end. Magnificent. astonishing and extroadinary. It will take your breath away. A remarkable and absorbing suspense ride that is more satisfying and more intelligent than most political or spy films
If you say the movie is best , the book is much much more better as the movie story is just the 1/20th of the book' story. I agree with the others about the story
MCT:July 25, 2008
MCT:July 25, 2008
MCT:July 13, 2008
MCT:July 8, 2008
MCT:July 7, 2008
MCT:May 8, 2008
