6/10
Ewan McGregor is a writer who, unacknowledged but well paid, writes autobiographies for the famous. His new assignment is a bit different however; the subject is ex-Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), who is holed up in a modernist house on the East Coast of America, in danger of being indicted for war crimes. The previous writer washed up dead on a nearby beach a couple of weeks earlier. Also in the house are Lang's embittered wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) and his secretary (Kim Cattrall) who is the reason why Ruth is embittered.
Plus points. 1. A good cast: it's been a while since McGregor had this much fun with a role. He looks relaxed and cheerful (until he starts feeling endangered), and makes a likeable central character we can identify with. Olivia Williams steals every scene she's in, and pulls off the unusual feat of making bitterness and intelligence sexy. Pierce Brosnan has less screen time, but is credible as a man used to the world doing his bidding, and finding it hard to accept that the tables have turned. And when Tom Wilkinson comes along late in the day, he is as compulsively watchable as always. 2. Strong direction. Most directors could take lessons from Polanski in how to construct scenes, how to edit and how to build tension. Without loud music and melodrama (for the most part), he creates a film which is a treat to watch, and - till the end - addictive.
Down side. The plot simply doesn't hang together. We follow the story all the way through, not so much because we want to know what the payoff is, as because it's such fun watching it unfold. But as we are given the major revelations, our belief begins to stretch to the point of fracture. Too many unexplained questions are left hanging, and behaviour that we watched in one light just doesn't make sense in retrospect.
Apart from that, however. there's a lot to enjoy here.
