The Ghost Writer is not a bad film. I think it kind of wants to be a David Lynch film, maybe with a little Coen Brothers stirred in, but it’s very halfhearted about it. The story is rather serious: murder, war crimes, mysterious clues from the dark past of the Prime Minister. But at the same time the filmmakers are weirdly indifferent to building dramatic tension or even treating the material seriously! Instead they busy themselves with mousing around, playing up the Lynch/Coen-like aspects of the set-up – everyone acting a little weird, everything a touch stylized, attempts at humor popping up in really odd places, shit like that. At the same time, no real attempt is made to bond the viewer to the developing plot in any way.  It’s as if the filmmakers are saying “you can turn this off at any time, it’s okay with us.” In fact, when the film finally starts to pick up in the last half-hour, you’re not even sure why you still care about the story. Add on top of this a bad score that is clearly composed for the purpose of conveying a completely unserious tone, and you are left with a seriously conflicted film. But somehow, the film works well enough to be somewhat enjoyable despite all this!

Ewan McGregor is a really weird quantity in films. He seems to pick these strange, kind of light-hearted, badly written roles all the time, and he has an affect that undermines or invalidates any material he’s in. He’s actually sort-of decent (and pretty funny) in this particular role, but at the same time he never seems the slightest bit real in it. It is very nice to see the marvelous and underrated Olivia Williams getting a interesting part as the former Prime Minister’s tough and smart wife. The others (Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, etc) are solid but unremarkable, as are all the supporting actors.

The only thing that really struck me in the film was the little scene with Tom Wilkinson. Wilkinson is so great! He has this knack of taking almost any material and without the slightest bit of overacting turning it into a riveting scene. He fits himself into scenes so beautifully, bringing exactly what the scene needs to be effective, and nothing else (in this way, he’s like opposite of people like Pacino, De Niro, and Streep, who blast to smithereens every scene they are in) . When Ewan McGregor goes to visit Wilkinson and find out what his somewhat mysterious connection to Brosnan really is, Wilkinson’s performance lifts the scene so much that during that moment you actually forget you are watching a muddled, badly paced drama with an ineffectual lead, and suddenly start responding to the movie as if you are right in the middle of a super tense and interesting thriller. Unfortunately this scene is only 5 minutes long, and then you are back to the real film.

One final complaint: They rip of Antonioni so badly in the film’s final scene, they should be ashamed of themselves.

The Ghost Writer: I would say it is probably worth seeing on Netflix if you can’t think of anything else to put on your cue. Despite all it’s problems and the weirdly indifferent attitude of the filmmakers, the story is a bit better than a lot of junk I’ve paid to see in theaters this year. Just don’t expect too much from it.