The Constant Gardener
Studio: Focus Features
Rated: R
Website: http://www.theconstantgardener.com/
Release Date: 2005-09-02
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Archie Panjabi, Bill Nighy
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Screenwriter: Jeffrey Caine
Music Score: Alberto Iglesias
WorkNameSort: Constant Gardener , The
Our Rating: 4.00

The fate of The Constant Gardener is to suffer by association. It’s a perfectly fine film, telling an important story in a mostly artful way. But director Fernando Meirelles’ last project, City of God, was one of the best pictures of the past five (maybe 10) years, and Gardener simply isn’t in that league. Its high quality as a genre exercise is still no substitute for its predecessor’s mesmerizing feats of legerdemain.

Adapted from the novel by John Le Carré, the film details the political education of a timid British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) whose activist wife (Rachel Weisz) has died under mysterious and violent circumstances. The evidence seems to indicate that she was having an affair, but as her widower tries to piece together the potentially devastating details of her last days, he comes to suspect that her death was tied to her crusading investigation of Kenya’s health-care apparatus. Major governments and top pharmaceutical firms are among the murder suspects he identifies. (Oliver Stone will no doubt be disappointed by the omission of the Teamsters.)

By couching its militant spirit in the form of a mystery, The Constant Gardener displays an understanding of mass entertainment that most “message movies” lack. For once, a film mainstream America should see is something they’re also likely to enjoy. Fiennes’ portrayal of a very English shrinking violet is predictably skillful – we can always count on him – but the nicest surprise is Weisz, who may finally be losing her air of triviality.

It’s a credit to both actors that they survive the first act’s unnecessarily confusing reliance on flashbacks and -forwards. (Odd that the film’s only overt nod to City of God is also its least effective indulgence.) One such memory sequence consigns Weisz to an introduction scene that has her mouthing off about the wrongheadedness of the Iraq war; we haven’t yet learned that such impassioned sermonettes are typical of her character, so the effect is jarring rather than stirring. For all its topicality, City of God was vivid proof that, when it comes to making movies, showing is better than telling. Here’s hoping Meirelles isn’t forgetting the lesson.

This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2005.