This is a faithful adaptation of John Le Carré’s novel and,
even with the constant flash-backs, it delivers. The 2001 book was an angry indictment of certain
pharmas – big pharmaceutical companies - and their dubious practices in getting
drugs tested and approved. Since then,
certain controls have been put in place yet somewhere we can be sure that poor people
are still being used without their consent as drug-testing guinea-pigs. Not all pharmas are wicked. But the one in The Constant Gardener definitely is.
The music matches the haunting and ravishing views of Africa and was composed by the Spaniard Alberto Iglesias.
The film starts in Kenya
Tess was an activist-humanitarian working with African
physician Arnold Bluhm (Herbert Kounde). She upset the tightly-knit diplomatic
community with her passion for speaking out, particularly against Three Bees
Pharmaceutical which ostensibly provides jobs, aid and money.
The quiet widower, Quayle, slowly digs around the edges of
his late wife’s past and unearths uncomfortable mysteries and a few home
truths. Fiennes’s performance is
understated and is particularly moving when he finally breaks down in his
garden to weep for his lost love.
If this had been a Hollywood
film, doubtless Quayle would have gone out for vengeance with a gun or two.
Instead, he simply pokes around, unsettling the hidden powers behind the
shadowy pharmaceutical company, including Sir Bernard Pellegrin (Bill Nighy)
who is in the Pharma’s pocket and just happens to be Quayle’s boss at the
Foreign Office.
It’s an unnerving film, because it tells us that, unless
things change radically, the beautiful continent of Africa is doomed by
commercial greed and despotism. Nothing new there, then. Worse, though, the
incidence of tuberculosis is increasing and will spread into Europe as the mass
migration of illegal immigrants continues; prophetic, it seems, since that is
the case now in UK. Yes, there is hope, but it is slim. The ending, for me, was
unsatisfying, which was the same emotional response I gleaned from the book. See this powerful and at times emotional
film, by all means, but it isn’t really entertainment as the message dominates
too much.
Le Carré can get away with switching tense and POV because
he’s such a good writer. Within a short space of time, the reader is immersed
in his characters’ worlds. I haven’t yet read all his books, but I’ve read the
majority, including all of the spy novels. For me, outside his spy fiction, The Night Manager is one of his
suspenseful best. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find a bad Le Carré book; it
is soon to be filmed as a TV series.
***
Note: You can read about my fictional pharma, Cerberus
Worldwide, in my ‘Avenging Cat’ thriller series, beginning with Catalyst.
Amazon UK e-book here
Amazon COM e-book here
Paperbacks are also available at a good price!
Or try getting the paperback from The Book Depository
post-free worldwide!
2 comments:
Not a spy novel reader, I'm not all that familiar with John Le Carré except through the movies, most recently A Most Wanted Man and before that the remake of Tinker, Tailor. I will say that his characters and plots make great material for the screen, though the murder of Rachel Weisz' character at the outset would disturb me more than a little despite the flashbacks. Hard to know whether Big Pharma or the next pandemic is more to be feared.
Drug resistant strains of TB spread in prisons here where deportees from 3rd world countries are held. Something to keep you awake at night if you don't have enough of that already.
Just saw Bill Nighy in Page Eight and the 2 sequels. Always a favorite, even as the aging rocker in Love, Actually.
Hi, Ron, good to see you here! I agree with your concerns, too. The last major ebola outbreak was in the late 1970s but no pharma invested in a cure because there was no money in it... So now thousands are dying. As for TB, that was eradicated from UK... but is now back thanks to mass immigration, it would seem.
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