The Constant Gardener, based on the John Le Carre novel of the same name, is one of the most emotionally powerful films I’ve ever seen. Well that’s not quite true – the last third of the film had me dumbstruck, the first third left me a little under-whelmed, while the middle third was an involving thriller. Let me explain…

The film opens with Justin Quayle hearing the news that his wife, Tessa, has been found murdered in northern Kenya. He works as a diplomat for the British Embassy, while Tess was a doctor. We then get the first of many flashbacks showing how the couple met. After this we are lead into a plot of political and eco-social intrigue as Justin embarks on a quest to discover just what his wife had been involved in, and just what was behind her death – seemingly a crime of passion, but something about it just doesn’t add up… Using his privileged security clearance Justin is able to find out certain things, but finishing the course he started when he decided to find out the truth will involve him risking everything he has…

For the first third of the film, I didn’t feel drawn into the plot. The dialogue was stilted, the plot seemed to jerk back and forth in time and place, the camerawork was less than steady, and the image was quite grainy. It didn’t take me long to realise that these things were all intentional, but with an apparently slow moving plot and characters you hadn’t come to care about, I felt a little bored in the first section of the film. Then we come to the second third and things really start to pick up speed. As we start to understand what’s going on (and what’s at stake), and starting to care what happens to Justin, it really becomes an involving thriller. Ralph Fiennes as Just Quayle gives a superb performance while Rachel Weisz as Tessa is also extremely good. (Though she’s dead at the beginning she features heavily in the film due to the use of flashbacks.) The plot becomes as complex and involving as you would expect of Le Carre, while the subsidiary characters are also interesting and keep you guessing as to which side they’re really on. Then we have the final third of the film, which is truly astonishing. With the overall subject matter of exploitation of African people by huge Western corporations (similarities with a recent court case involving a major pharmaceutical firm in Nigeria it becomes even more poignant), somehow the later scenes of this film manage to be even more powerful than those in Hotel Rwanda, despite the latter being based on real events. When the end came, it wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting.

So my rating for the 1st section would be 3 stars, for the middle 4 stars, the last part 5 stars. I’ve averaged that out to 4, but really the closing scenes of this film will be etched in your memory forever once you’ve watched it. The Constant Gardener (Justin Quayle has a love of gardening) isn’t a particularly easy film to watch, and is quite brutal in places. Be warned that there’s quite a bit of nudity, violence and bad language in it, giving it a 15 rating in the UK and an R rating in America. (The bad language almost entirely comes from a single character in the film.) One of the scenes in Africa apparently had an unscripted element to it, and looking back this certainly added to the charm of that scene.

The cast could scarcely have been better, with Rachel Weisz earning an Oscar for her role. Fiennes can count himself rather unfortunate not to have been nominated for an Oscar though he won other acting awards for his role here. Pete Poslethwaite struggles with his attempts at a white African accent but is otherwise as reliable as ever! Archie Panjabi stands out of the rest of the cast as Justin’s friend and confidant. Quite a few new faces are on show here, it will be interesting to see whether they go on to feature in more films.

The Constant Gardener was nominated for 4 Oscars in total – apart from Weisz’s win the other nominations were for Claire Simpson’s editing, Jeffery Caine’s adaptation of the novel into a screenplay, and Alberto Iglesias’ brilliantly evocative musical score. Not an easy film to get into straight away, but a very rewarding one if you stick with it. I do wonder what it would be like seeing it again - if I ever get round to it, I'll update this review.

Other Information

Director: Fernando Meirelles
Runtime: 129 minutes


Quotes

”Big pharmaceuticals are right up there with the arms dealers.”

”It's like it's a marriage of convenience and all it produces are dead offspring.”


Related Reviews

The Russia House - also based on a novel by John Le Carre (starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer)

Top Ten Films of 2005 - updated to include this film.



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See also my Top Ten Dramas list.
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Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age