The Constant Gardener (film)
| The Constant Gardener | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Fernando Meirelles |
| Screenplay by | Jeffrey Caine |
| Based on | The Constant Gardener by John le Carré |
| Produced by | Simon Channing Williams Gail Egan |
| Starring | Ralph Fiennes Rachel Weisz Danny Huston Bill Nighy Pete Postlethwaite |
| Cinematography | César Charlone |
| Edited by | Claire Simpson |
| Music by | Alberto Iglesias |
| Distributed by | United International Pictures (United Kingdom)[1] Kinowelt Filmverleih (Germany)[1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 129 minutes |
| Countries | United Kingdom Germany |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25 million[1] |
| Box office | $82.4 million[1] |
The Constant Gardener is a 2005 British-German drama thriller film[2] directed by Fernando Meirelles. The screenplay by Jeffrey Caine is based on John le Carré's 2001 novel of the same name. The story follows Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a British diplomat in Kenya, as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz), an Amnesty activist, alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love.
The film was filmed on location in Loiyangalani and the slums of Kibera, a section of Nairobi, Kenya. Circumstances in the area affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust in order to provide basic education for these villages. The plot was vaguely based on a real-life case in Kano, Nigeria. The DVD versions were released in the United States on 1 January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13 March 2006. Justin's gentle but diligent attention to his plants is a recurring background theme, from which image the film's title is derived. Hubert Koundé, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, and Donald Sumpter co-star. The film was a critical and box office success and earned four Oscar nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz.
Plot[]
Revealed in a flashback: The company "Three Bees" develops a tuberculosis drug "Dypraxa" and has drug trials conducted in Kenya by "KVH" (Karel Vita Hudson). In order to get willing test subjects, KVH offers treatment for HIV at no cost.
KVH discovers that the "Dypraxa" drug is effective, but kills a higher number of people than would be acceptable. Three Bees, to prevent delaying the release of the drug and spending millions of dollars on refining the formula, covers up the deaths with the assistance of the British Foreign Office.
The inventor of Dypraxa, Dr Lorbeer, upon discovering his trial has killed so many people, runs away and attempts to atone for the deaths by treating villagers in Southern Sudan.
Tessa Quayle, a rich Amnesty International activist, lives in Kenya watching for corruption and waste of foreign aid sent for medicine and hospitals, and becomes aware of the unnecessary tuberculosis treatment while visiting HIV patients with a Kenyan doctor, Arnold Bluhm. Arnold is gay but keeps it a secret since homosexuality is illegal in Kenya. Tessa and Arnold are close, which causes rumors of an affair because Tessa is married to Justin Quayle, a low-level British diplomat and horticultural hobbyist posted in Kenya.
Tessa, who is very pregnant, sees a new mother get very ill who was part of the trial. Tessa and Arnold try to get some attention on the trial by writing up a report for the Foreign Office, but to protect Justin, Tessa takes the report to her husband's coworker, the British High Commissioner, Sandy Woodrow. Sandy sends the report to his boss in London, Sir Bernard Pellegrin, who heads the Africa Desk at the Foreign Office.
Sir Bernard Pellegrin, immediately writes an incriminating letter to Sandy saying that by acknowledging that there could be a risk of Dypraxa causing unnecessary deaths, the Foreign Office cannot claim ignorance when Three Bees announces the safety of Dypraxa, so the report must be buried, and Tessa and Arnold need to be kept under surveillance to further block any reporting of problems with Dypraxa.
Sandy realizes he made a mistake to send the report but doesn't recognize the danger Tessa is in. When Tessa asks Sandy about the response he deflects that he only got a personal letter in response. Tessa promises she will have sex with him if he shows her the letter. Sandy hands her the letter and tells her to leave it in his drawer after she's read it.
Tessa reads it and realizes the situation is serious. Determined to not have the lives of poor Kenyans sacrificed so Three Bees can make millions of dollars, she arranges for her and Arnold to go find Dr. Lorbeer in southern Sudan so she can get proof of her theories and turn those in to a German watchdog group.
Knowing she is in danger, she ensures her will is set to take care of her husband, including leaving him the home in London so that he can go home to it after she dies. Sandy, still holding out hope that Tess will leave Justin for him, writes her a letter asking for them to run away together. Tess hides this letter in a keepsake box.
Tessa and Arnold go to southern Sudan and find Lorbeer, get the clinical trial data from him and record him on tape admitting to what he knows about the drug trials killing people, and leave the letter that Pellegrin wrote with him as proof that the Foreign Service was also aware of the issue. Sandy informs Pellegrin that Tess and Arnold are on the move, and Pellegrin orders them to be killed, and for it to look like Arnold raped Tessa and beat her to death.
Tessa and Arnold hire a driver to leave in order to mail the evidence and tape, only to be run off the road by the hit squad, where the driver is killed, Tess is raped and beaten to death, and Arnold is abducted, has his tongue cut out, crucified upside down, his penis cut off which is then shoved into his mouth.
Sandy gets the news, goes to Justin, and tells him they are getting reports of a white woman and black driver found killed in the southern end of Lake Turkana. Sandy says Tess and Arnold spent the night at Lodwar, shared a room, then hired a car, and Arnold's whereabouts are unknown.
The movie flashes back to Justin and Tess meeting and falling in love. In the present, Justin and Sandy are taken to a Kenyan morgue to Tessa's body. Sandy now understands that a hit was put out on her because of the report she filed and Justin identifies her body.
Tessa's office has all the computers and CD's taken from it in an effort to wipe out any evidence of the crime, but Justin finds Sandy's letter in the keepsake box, where Sandy asks for "the thing you took from me" (the letter from Pellegrin). Justin becomes determined to get to the bottom of her murder and notices people tailing him, intimidating him with notes, and eventually beating him up and telling him to stay away. Despite this, he continues to uncover his wife's final days. Three Bees in the meantime have made the announcement of a safe Dypraxa and their stock price has soared.
While in London, Justin meets with his lawyer who is Tessa's first cousin, Ham. Ham lets him know that she took care of Justin in the will in case she died, as little as a week before she was murdered.
Ham helps Justin get a fake passport, since they know they are both being watched, then set up Tessa's aunt in Rome as a contact that Justin can call to get ahold of Ham.
When Justin finds out about Lobeer in southern Sudan, he visits him and gets the incriminating letter, which he has mailed to the aunt in Rome. He then goes to Lake Turkana, where he says that he knows all of Tessa's secrets, that he understands her now, and he is coming home. To prevent being tortured to death, he removes the bullets from a gun and likely brandishes it to the approaching hit squad so that they kill him.
At Tessa and Justin's London memorial service, Pellegrin speaks of Justin as having committed suicide in the same place where his wife died because he didn't want to bother anyone else with his death. Ham starts speaking as if reading a bible verse but instead reads the incriminating letter written by Pellegrin to Sandy. When Pellegrin realizes what's been done in front of a church full of witnesses and reporters, he storms out of the church and into a waiting car.
Cast[]
- Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle
- Rachel Weisz as Tessa Abbott-Quayle
- Danny Huston as Sandy Woodrow
- Hubert Koundé as Arnold Bluhm
- Archie Panjabi as Ghita Pearson
- Bill Nighy as Sir Bernard Pellegrin
- Gerard McSorley as Sir Kenneth Curtis
- Pete Postlethwaite as Lorbeer
- Donald Sumpter as Tim Donohue
- Richard McCabe as Arthur Hammond
- Juliet Aubrey as Gloria Woodrow
- Nick Reding as Crick
- Christopher Okinda as Doctor
Inspiration and themes[]
The plot of the film is loosely based on a real-life case in Kano, Nigeria involving antibacterial testing from Pfizer on small children.
The film's title derives from Justin's gentle but diligent attention to his plants, a recurring background theme that informs his patience and persistence.
Production[]
The film was shot on location in Loiyangalani and the slums of Kibera, a section of Nairobi, Kenya. Circumstances in the area affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust in order to provide basic education for these villages. Kate Winslet was considered for the female lead before Weisz was cast.
Reception[]
Box office[]
The film's worldwide gross was $82,466,670.
Critical response[]
On the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Constant Gardener has a "Certified Fresh" score of 83%, based on 193 critical reviews, with an average rating of 7.57/10. The consensus reads, "The Constant Gardener is a smart, gripping, and suspenseful thriller with rich performances from the leads."[3] It also has a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[4]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "one of the year's best films."[5] USA Today noted that the film's "passion, betrayal, gorgeous cinematography, social commentary, stellar performances and clever wit puts it in a special category near perfection". However, Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice criticized the film as "a cannonballing mélange of hack-cuts, impressionistic close-ups, and tropical swelter."[6]
Awards[]
Author's dedication and afterword[]
John le Carré, in the first edition of the 2001 novel on which the film is based, provided both a dedication and a personal afterword. The dedication and part of the afterword (amended) are reproduced in the closing credits of the film. The first states: "This film is dedicated to Yvette Pierpaoli and all other aid workers who lived and died giving a damn." The latter continues (in the next credit): "Nobody in this story, and no outfit or corporation, thank God, is based upon an actual person or outfit in the real world, but I can tell you this, as my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard." The text appears over John le Carré's name.
See also[]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d "The Constant Gardener (2005)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ "AFI|Catalog - The Constant Gardener". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
- ^ "The Constant Gardener (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ "The Constant Gardener" – via www.metacritic.com.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (1 September 2005). "The Constant Gardener review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ Atkinson, Michael (23 August 2005). "Cold Comfort Pharm". The Village Voice. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
External links[]
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Constant Gardener (film) |
- The Constant Gardener at IMDb
- The Constant Gardener at AllMovie
- The Constant Gardener at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Constant Gardener at Box Office Mojo
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- 2005 films
- English-language films
- 2000s thriller drama films
- 2000s mystery thriller films
- 2000s mystery drama films
- BAFTA winners (films)
- British mystery thriller films
- British nonlinear narrative films
- British thriller drama films
- British films
- English-language German films
- Films about murder
- Films about widowhood
- Films directed by Fernando Meirelles
- Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
- Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
- Films set in Kenya
- Films set in London
- Films set in Sudan
- Films shot in Kenya
- Focus Features films
- Films based on works by John le Carré
- Films scored by Alberto Iglesias
- Medical-themed films
- Films with screenplays by Jeffrey Caine
- 2005 drama films
- Films set in Nairobi