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How to Write a Conspiracy Theory
by Danielle Veluz and Jansen Musico

The Ghost Writer
D: Roman Polanski
S: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Catrall, Olivia Williams

Conspiracy theory flicks, especially those of the political sort, make us want to either walk out of the cinema in rage or snooze obnoxiously in our seats. To save ourselves from becoming rude moviegoers, we normally opt to remove watching those movies from our itineraries. But this particular film was special. You see, we went to catch The Ghost Writer on its opening day for one reason alone: Roman Polanski. Of course there was Ewan McGregor, but we’ll get to him later.

Mr. Polanski is quite the director. His body of work spans over five decades of film. Some of these include titles like Chinatown, The Pianist, and the iconic 60s thriller Rosemary’s Baby. His personal life is equally interesting. Having been involved in a sex scandal with a minor and losing his wife to the perverted rituals of the infamous Manson family, it’s a miracle that he’s still making movies up to this date. Frankly, we’re happy that he still is.

The Ghost Writer, an adaptation of Robert Harris’s 2007 novel, The Ghost, is anything but boring. Polanski and Harris put their heads together, scrapped out some characters, rewrote some scenes, and ended up with a suspense flick which echoes the tension of Rosemary’s Baby, minus the glacial pacing. But the most essential element this film possesses that a lot of conspiracy theory flicks don’t is the one thing its protagonist cheekily repeats throughout the film: “It has heart.”

Ewan McGregor plays the ghost writer, a man assigned to write the memoir of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). He flies to America to meet his new client, his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams), and his very personal assistant Amelia (Kim Catrall, whose troublesome accent was distracting) and starts working from where the last ghost writer left off. With less than a day into the job, he realizes that he’s bitten off more than he can chew after discovering some clues that lead to answering the suspicious death of his predecessor.

The mystery is highly engaging, all thanks to Harris and Polanski’s penmanship and direction. Having a nameless protagonist with a hollow back story makes it easier for the viewer to tune into the scenes as they happen. We never really have the chance to identify with the protagonist, but like him, we get so engrossed in finding out the truth that we eventually become so tense when there are situations obviously trying to stop him from doing so. It’s also interesting to note that, unlike most Hollywood suspense movies, The Ghost Writer keeps action scenes to a minimum. Most of the excitement stems from the way every piece of this elaborate puzzle is set up and revealed. The clues are so meticulously written in and are so simple it’ll have viewers slapping their heads during the final sequence, which, we should add, gives this film the true mark of Polanski’s brilliance.

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The Ghost Writer is now showing at Greenbelt and Glorietta.