#4 of 12 films in my Adapted Screenplay Challenge (2)

Going into this 477-page novel, I had never read a book by John Le Carré before. In fact, I've read very few spy novels or political thrillers, and I really have no context of comparison for this work.

The story opens at the British High Commission in Nairobi. Sandy Woodrow, Head of Chancery, has just received news of the death of a compatriot, an aid worker named Tessa, near Lake Turkana and the Richard Leaky archaeological site. All evidence seems to indicate murder, and Woodrow has the unenviable task of checking the details and breaking the news to her husband, Justin Quayle, First Secretary in the Chancery, as well as…

Underlying the hidden surfaces where danger flows, Tessa an outspoken humanitarian and Amnesty activist is brutally murdered with her colleague Dr. Arnold Bluhm. The mystery is significant part of her work from her husband Justin who is a diplomat stationed in Kenya. After her death and rumors of Tessa having an affair surface, Justin starts to investigate what really got Tessa killed, what was she working on and who was he to her in all this.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles, the story unfolds in the past when Tessa met Justin and how they fell in love and married. Tessa has kept her job independent from Justin. Tessa is outspoken, confronting people in important positions while keeping an important secret for…

The Constant Gardener Review

"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

The Constant Gardener takes it's name from the book it adapts and the fact that the main character is in the sense a "constant" gardener even though we only see him water plants and buy seeds. This film tries to mask itself as an intense revenger's tragedy with a spy thriller all throughout Kenya as a conspiracy about the lethal testing of drugs is tested on Africans. In reality if you focus on it, it's really just a melodramatic love story about a man who's trying to finish what his…

Filme mediano. Se por um lado a trama de O jardineiro fiel é redonda e bem estruturada, por outro ela é genérica, se os personagens possuem arcos bem definidos, coesos e com boas conclusões, eles carecem um pouco de camadas. Tessa foi uma personagem que em momento nenhum me conquistou, parecia exagerada e as vezes até irritante, já o personagem de Ralph Fiennes só nos conquista devido ao tempo de tela e o foco investido nele. Faltam nuances aos personagens, além de uma interação mais convincente entre os casal, assim nosso envolvimento é prejudicado. A direção de Meirelles também é problemática ao imprimir um ritmo acelerado à narrativa, tirando todo o suspense que ela poderia gerar, além é claro de…

Taught political thriller more effectively employed as social commentary on humanitarian aid and ethics of big pharma than an intriguing, entertaining or mysterious movie.

Weisz is brilliant as the energetic and relentless humanitarian worker, murdered for her attempt to reveal the cover ups in a pharmaceutical drug trial. Unfortunately her presence is short lived visually speaking, and her absence is felt as Fiennes is left to pick up the probing pace of her investigations.

The large cast of characters and political machinations masks a deceptively simple premise, and as a result the film takes a roundabout way to reach its conclusions. One can only assume this was required to pay adequate due to the more important thematic conclusions the film…