Red Digital Readout

Diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) receives news that his wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) has been killed in Kenya. Justin’s British reserve goes so deep that he hardly blinks, and apologizes to the man who had to bear the news. Despite the calm formality, his eyes flicker with pain.

The Constant Gardener is a decidedly British film, a political thriller that displays low-key intelligence and yet crackles with intrigue. There are no shootouts or heroics, nor are there dramatic clues left behind at every location. Instead we are given a complicated, intersecting web of seedy diplomats, greedy corporations, battered third-world war zones, and merciless contract killers. Beneath all this, a touching human story punctuates every frame.

Before her death, Tessa was a leftist activist who traveled throughout Africa. Treading through Kenya alone would be dangerous for anyone, much less a pregnant British woman, but she does so with naïve zeal, desperate to help anyone she can. Although Justin found these qualities attractive in the first place, they are getting tiresome. Tessa rarely comes home, and spends a startling amount of time with an African doctor, a sore point that generates no shortage of rumor. At the time of her suspicious death, Tessa was a key component of an investigation into the habits of a parsimonious pharmaceutical company, and Justin finds himself quickly sucked into his wife’s work. Obsessively diving into the Africa his wife knew, Justin begins to acquire the same qualities that made Tessa a great person, and got her killed.

The Constant Gardener pays great respect to the intelligence of the audience, all but unheard of for a left-leaning political thriller. Tessa’s death comes right away, but almost immediately the film cuts to flashbacks, correctly assuming that attentive audience members don’t need it spelled out. The British nature of the story works very well; characters rarely say exactly what runs through their minds, but use subtle wording and veiled threats to convey the plot. Instead of long-winded monologues of The Contender or Good Night, and Good Luck, we simply watch events play out, free to make up our own minds.

Yet, most interesting is the story of Justin and Tessa’s marriage. Justin had a deep but almost bemused love for his wife, who never seemed to forget about her humanitarian work for a minute. At the time of her death, the marriage appeared to be crumbling, Justin nearing the end of his rope with her secrecy and absences.

Through the course of his investigation, he discovers things about Tessa that he never knew, peeling back the layers until he sees what sort of person she really was at the core. Her generosity was infectious, and changes him profoundly. Many of us wish for a few more minutes with someone that we lost; Justin’s longing for Tessa builds in his eyes until looking at him is like peering into the sun.

The Constant Gardener works splendidly on every level it exists. Simultaneously suspenseful, touching, and thought provoking, the film can justly take a seat with the other great issue pieces of 2005, though it will not be remembered solely for its views on drug companies. Any film maker who wants to touch on politics should take a note; lectures are boring, great stories are not.

4 out of 5

# posted by James : 3:58 PM