Review: The Constant Gardener (2005)

The Constant Gardener
2005
R
125 min.

By Scott Mendelson

One thing that The Constant Gardener gets right, something that many
other thrillers and social message movies get wrong, is that the very
worst sort of evil is not born out of lust, greed, or thirst for
power, but rather laziness. Whether it's not replacing a series of
safety caps that would have cost less than $1000 which would have
prevented the 1996 crash of Value Jet 592, or ignoring problems with
the side engine GM cars that caused several slight-impact crashes in
their 1970s models (cost ratio: $8.59 to fix each car vs. eventual
$4.9 BILLION lawsuit settlement), it is apathy and laziness that
causes so much suffering at the hands of those allegedly evil,
faceless corporations.

In short, The Constant Gardener is a classical old fashioned political
thriller in which a well meaning, but naïve person is awakened to the
evil or corruption that exists around them in their idealized
environment after a loved one is killed and/or their own life is
turned upside down (think most films by Costa-Gavras, who popularized
the genre). The clueless do-gooder is low ranking British diplomat
Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes and yes, his character likes to plant and
tend to gardens), who discovers in the opening scene that his social
crusader wife Theresa (Rachel Weisz) has been murdered while the two
of them were residing in Africa.

For the first forty minutes or so, we flashback to their tumultuous
but loving relationship which details his attempts to balance his own
diplomatic responsibilities with his wife?s more direct approach at
dealing with African AIDS drug policies. When we are brought back to
the present, we focus on Quayle's guilt-ridden quest to discover just
why his wife was murdered. Needless to say, this was not a robbery
gone wrong, but a desperate attempt to silence a vocal critic with
strong evidence of damaging information about a major pharmaceutical
company. What that information is, who is involved, and what the
consequences are, I'll leave you to discover.

That the film goes into details on the moral dilemmas and outright
immoral actions of major drug companies is a given, but the core
mystery and personal story never gets lost amid the politics and
skullduggery (the alleged horrors of such companies' policies
regarding poor African nations and even our own broken healthcare
system can be found via a simple Google search, so I won't list them
here). The film is also full of small character details. Pete
Postlethwaite shines in a third act role as a doctor with much to
atone for. I'm fond of the opening moments, where Theresa confronts
her husband-to-be with a ridiculously overwrought and marble-mouthed
anti-Iraq-war rant that is so poorly delivered that one wonders if it
was merely a ploy to empty the room so she can hit on this handsome
guest lecturer (Rachel Weisz is quickly becoming one of the better
actresses of her generation, giving credibility to popcorn movies like
The Mummy or Constantine in a way similar to Sean Bean). And several
characters state or imply, with a frightening convincingness, that it
may be less than immoral to use African AIDS sufferers as pawns, since
they are just about dead anyway (1996's Extreme Measures with Hugh
Grant and Gene Hackman, was a terrific medical thriller that dealt
with similar issues on American soil).

At the core, the film is about a man who is shattered to discover that
his wife loved him far more than he thought she did, and that her love
prevented her from taking the steps that might have saved her life.
And the mystery being uncovered eventually leads to a trail of normal
men who did just a little bit of evil, because doing the right thing
would have taken more time and more energy.

The film only stumbles at the very end, with a 'big speech' by a
peripheral character that is ruined by a montage of African children
playing happily and smiling at the camera, in case the audience just
didn't get what was at stake before. For just that moment, this very
smart movie assumes that we are very dumb. Of course, it's ironic that
such a well-made thriller trips itself by lazily explaining the moral
of the story, a story in which great sins are committed out of that
same laziness.

On a digressive note, for a little seen gem also starring Ralph
Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, track down Sunshine. Released in 2000, this
story of three generations of a German Jewish family is the rare movie
to deal with Jewish persecution in genuine shades of gray.

Grade: A-