The Constant Gardener
Composite Score: 86.13
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Hubert Koundé, Bill Nighy, Donald Sumpter, Archie Panjabi, Nick Reding, Gerard McSorley, Juliet Aubrey, Donald Apiyo, and Richard McCabe
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Writer: Jeffrey Caine
Genres: Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R for language, some violent images, and sexual content/nudity
Box Office: $82.47 million
Why should you Watch This Film?
The Constant Gardener is the film adaptation of John le Carré’s novel of the same name about a British diplomat whose wife is murdered in Kenya, leading him on an investigation that uncovers a slew of political and pharmaceutical corruptions. The film stars Ralph Fiennes in the lead role of Justin Quayle and Rachel Weisz as his wife Tessa. They are joined by Danny Huston as Quayle’s colleague Sandy Woodrow, Hubert Koundé as Tessa’s friend the Kenyan Dr. Arnold Bluhm, Bill Nighy as the head of the Africa Desk at the British Foreign Office Sir Bernard Pellegrin, and Donald Sumpter as British Intelligence Officer Tim Donohue. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Editing, and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz. It has received special acclaim for its performances and the portrayal of topical information.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The Constant Gardener is a film that takes forever to fully hook the audience with its premise, and I think that comes out of a desire to keep them as in the dark as the protagonist for the first half of the film. Were it not for the excellent showings from Fiennes and Weisz, I don’t know that I could have called this a film worth watching in the first half. When it does finally pick up, in the film’s back half, it keeps an easy hold of you with plenty of espionage and suspense, but it takes its sweet time getting there. I get the reason for keeping the audience on the same page as Justin, but for that to work well, I feel like they should have not cut the first half’s flashbacks up into a nonlinear pile of vibes that never really tell you how anyone feels. It’s good that the film doesn’t tell the audience how they should feel, but the lack of compelling motivation for any of the main characters makes it hard to fully commit to the film’s premise. I don’t know if Justin is going to commit to investigating his wife’s murder for the first forty minutes of the film, which means that I, in turn, don’t really commit to investigating the murder either. Likewise, the details of her own investigation are kept murky to keep us in the mindset of Justin, which means we don’t know how much we should actually care about her cause and how much she’s overblowing it out of a sense of self-importance. It makes for a frustrating first act and a half, only held together by two stellar performances.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
The entire success of The Constant Gardener rests on Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. Their chemistry together (something certainly not guaranteed in all Ralph Fiennes romantic films *cough* Maid in Manhattan *cough*) instantly makes their romance something worth paying attention to, as his soft-spoken and methodical Justin pairs almost perfectly with her opinionated and passionate Tessa. Fiennes has a much larger role to play as the film’s lead who is alive for the whole film, and he plays Justin in such a way that he does feel very much like an audience surrogate, reacting how we might and searching in the ways that we would. It’s not his flashiest performance by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s likable and worth rooting for and has a great rapport with all of his fellow actors in the film, so he makes the film a definite success. Weisz’s Oscar winning performance is certainly the one that steals the show, but she never actually steals the scene, as so often does happen with Supporting Actress wins these days. Instead, she plays Tessa as she is, and gives us a tragic character worth investing in and following up on, as Justin does. Just as she serves as his motivation, she urges the audience to keep watching and see how the film’s back half goes, leaving us wanting more of her but satisfied with the showing that we got anyway – which I think can be said of most of Weisz’s performances, if we’re being honest.
Carried by its two leading performers, The Constant Gardener supplies us with a compelling look at government and pharmaceutical corruption and exploitation that maintains its watchability primarily through Weisz and Fiennes, who earn it a spot among the greats. The slow first act and limited commitment to its own plot in the first half can be a turnoff for some viewers, but those who make it to the back half won’t be easily able to turn away from what’s happening on the screen. You can currently rent this film on most streaming services if you’d like to watch it for yourself.
