[Note: The Ghost Writer opens Fri., March 5 at Regal Cinemas’ Park Place Stadium 16 in Pinellas Park before expanding into more theaters next week. (You can check showtimes here.) For more reviews of the biggest new releases, check out the Daily Loaf Movie Review Index.]
It’s impossible to talk about The Ghost Writer, the taut new political thriller from Roman Polanski, without also wading into the moral swamp of the director’s legal problems. For starters, Polanski’s recent arrest on decades-old American rape charges forced the filmmaker to complete some of post-production while under house arrest in Switzerland. Knowing that, you can be sure that some conservative viewers are going to read into the film a potent anti-Americanism that can be marginalized as tit-for-tat retribution. Whatever your view of Polanski the man, or of geopolitics in general, there is no denying that The Ghost Writer is a potent mystery anchored by a terrific performance by Ewan McGregor.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.
