Film Review: Ghost Writer

(Starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams and Kim Cattrall)

You’re a struggling writer trying to land one breakthrough gig that will bring you into the limelight. What if this assignment is embroiled in political controversy that could be detrimental to your health? Academy Award Winner Roman Polanski directs the new British political thriller Ghost Writer, loosely based on a Robert Harris novel. The French director filmed this picture while in the midst of incarceration in Switzerland in 2009. It proves that sometimes fiction mirrors reality in that the director’s actions have made a political statement just as his current film attempted to do.

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Set in a small Protestant German Village, White Ribbon succeeds in being a fabulous suspense film without ever fully solving a single crime. Viewers know from the opening monologue that this is no ordinary story. It could even be called a cautionary tale since the narrator states that much of what he is repeating is based on recollections and hearsay. The opening draws you in, but also let’s you know that what you see isn’t necessarily what you get.

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The Last Station

(Starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti)

Oscar-nominated The Last Station offers moviegoers an abridged history on writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), his beliefs and the battle over who owns the rights to his books. Tolstoy was a pacifist whose ideals on living a virtuous life and loving your neighbors inspired the Russian people and the world. His beliefs were embraced by his protégé Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), who believed the copyrights to his works should belong to the people – much to the dismay of his wife.

Helen Mirren plays Sofya Tolstoy, a woman who knows and loves her husband, but struggles with his ideals and fears that her husband is sacrificing the future of his family for his new ideals. She despises Chertkov and believes the Tolstoy movement is not true to her husband or his beliefs, but an interpretation and bastardization of his beliefs by Chertkov.

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Creation

(Starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly)

There is an old adage that opposites attract. Oftentimes, most couples have a yin and a yang that are two different people that complement each other to produce a happy, successful union. What happens when each party’s views are at such different ends that the marriage develops a rift and stagnation occurs? Creation, starring Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife Emma, “tells” the story of Darwin’s difficulty in completing his novel, The Origin of Species.

When the film opens, Darwin is well on his way to completing his book, Species. However the death of his favorite child has caused him to lose his inspiration and question whether the novel is anti-religion. If survival of the fittest is true, what will this do to the belief in God and Creationism. The issue is further complicated since his devout and religious wife feels that the book borders on blasphemy.

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Valentine's Day

(Starring: Julia Roberts, Asthon Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel)

February 14^th is a day that many embrace and others dread. It can be exceptionally romantic or terribly lonely. A number of  people are looking for their perfect mate. You would think that a man like Garry Marshall who brought us the dynamic duo of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, or Laverne and Shirley, would know what chemistry is, especially when he’s trying to pull off a romantic comedy like Valentine’s Day. Sometimes a star-studded cast doesn’t guarantee a successful movie.

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