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I haven’t read John Le Carré’s The Constant Gardener but I did see City of God (Cidade de Deus) by the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles. Both of them are highly-rated so I did expect a very good movie. Meirelles’ style is consistent with his previous movie where we got the in-your-face realism of slums and their dwellers.

The story (chronologically told) is about a “couple’ that goes to Africa. The husband is Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a British diplomat in Kenya. His young wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), goes from helping the poor in the slums to tracking medicines all the way to big pharma and their testing of experimental drugs in third world countries.

When Tessa is killed, Justin takes up her mission in a rude awakening for his comfortable life of a career diplomat. Tessa does reappear once or twice in dream sequences but I wanted to see Rachel Weisz a bit more. She brought energy to the movie that Ralph’s soft-spoken couldn’t match in the third act.

Overall, it’s a good and intelligent thriller. It did fail to get a response on an emotional level: Tessa & Justin’s relationship was too stale; the big pharma victims remained nameless and faceless. The movie has a very strong political message. I’m almost surprised that Jeff Skoll’s Participant Productions didn’t produce this one as well (Syriana, North Country, etc.).

Whoever was in charge of Ralph’s wardrobe should’ve done some screen tests before committing to the sweaty tshirt for the second half of the movie.

They probably wanted to get as far away as possible from Ralph’s portrayal of Lazslo de Almasy (The English Patient) because it would encourage people to compare the two movies. There’s no way The Constant Gardner will come on top in a comparison like that.

Update: Rachel Weisz won an Oscar for her portrayal of Tessa.