The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener was, as expected, quite good. I found it to be a very exciting, smart, and well-told story, which requires the viewer to pay extremely close attention to details as they all become critically relevant at later points in the movie. It is a very serious film however, so I wouldn’t recommend seeing it unless you are in the mood for heavy political and social commentary.

The story centers on Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a British diplomat working in Africa along with his wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), who is a passionate political activist. The story begins with Tessa’s mysterious murder in a small African town along with her alleged lover, Dr. Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé). Tessa’s secretive day-to-day activities in the months leading to her death gave the impression that she was indeed having an affair, but given the gruesome manner in which she was killed, Justin begins to suspect that perhaps something more sinister was going on. While everyone around him insists that Tessa was simply an overzealous conspiracy theorist who was killed at the hands of bandits, Justin retraces Tessa’s final few days and discovers inklings of something more dangerous behind her murder. The movie features several flashback scenes which detail Justin and Tessa’s initial meeting and relationship and then progressively show Tessa’s investigations into a pharmaceutical company’s methods for the distribution of AIDS medication. As the movie switches back and forth between past and present, Justin’s continuing exploration of Tessa’s work begins to reveal an insidious conspiracy that both the British government and the pharmaceutical company attempt to hide from him with escalating violence.

I was impressed at how this movie was as much a character-driven story as it was a conspiracy thriller. Justin, though married to Tessa, seemed to know very little about her professional life and therefore doesn’t really know her all that well. She did not confide in him about her findings or the fact that she was even delving into an investigation at all, so her secretive interactions with Dr. Arnold Bluhm could have been both romantic and professional—Justin doesn’t know, and neither does the audience until the end of the film. As we learn the intricacies of the conspiracy we simultaneously learn more about Tessa’s personality—as does Justin himself.

The movie is political without taking sides, and its message is insightful and not beaten over the viewer’s head. It doesn’t paint a very nice picture of large pharmaceutical companies, which are at one point compared to arms dealers. On the opposite side are the African people who are victims of the conspiracy—treated as expendable and fully aware of that fact, they do nothing to help themselves as the alternative is certain death from AIDS. Suffice it to say that the acting in this movie is superb, although this shouldn’t be too surprising given that the lead character is played by Ralph Fiennes. There is also an interesting artistic quality to the film, which prevents it from feeling flashy or over hyped. The story is exciting and draws the audience in, but again, the details are important, so it’s essential to pay close attention to any names that are mentioned, however briefly.

The Constant Gardner is a very well-done and artistic movie, and I definitely recommend that you see it. The story is exciting, the acting is excellent, and I was left with a lasting contemplative mood—which is a nice change of pace after frequent brain-frying in the theater.