The Constant Gardener (2005)

“Do you no good to go poking around under rocks, Justin. Some very nasty things live under rocks, especially in foreign gardens.” – Sir Bernard Pellegrin

Number of Times Seen – 1 (1 Jan 2019)

Brief Synopsis – A British diplomat tries to uncover the people who murdered his wife while they were stationed in Africa.

My Take on it – This is a film that I never saw before and that largely has to do with the fact that the premise made it seem quite uninteresting.

I would have expected a much more thrilling and gripping thriller by John La Carré, yet this film just doesn’t work well enough.

There is no chemistry between Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz and that hurts the premise of the film itself.

Fiennes is fine in the lead but Weisz stands out in every scene she appears in and was able to win an Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance here.

The story itself gets very convoluted along the way and something must be lost during the transfer from page to screen because it lacks something much more powerful in its interpretation of the events presented here.

Bottom Line – Not as thrilling as I would have hoped for. Fiennes and Weisz have terrible chemistry together which hurts the premise of the film. Weisz won and Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG Award for supporting actress for this performance where she truly stands out among the entire cast. The story itself gets to convoluted along the way and probably was much better understood by the description in the novel because the transfer to the screen is missing something.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – When independent British film producer Simon Channing Williams read an advance copy of John le Carré’s The Constant Gardener in late 2000, he wrote an impassioned letter to the author’s lawyer, Michael Rudell. In the letter, the producer pleaded his case for being given the chance to turn the novel into a film. When Rudell replied and suggested a meeting, Channing Williams volunteered to fly from London to New York that same evening. The producer explained: “I wanted to prove to him how serious I was about making it into a movie, because I thought the book was so extraordinary. It delves into the rapaciousness of big business, the abuse of the African peoples, governmental corruption, and at the root of it all, an utterly compelling love story. It was such a heartfelt, angry book, and, sadly, I believe it will remain relevant for many, many years to come.”(From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)