THE CONSTANT GARDENER

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: sexual content, nudity, language, violence

Rated:

The previews for this don't really give you any notion of what you're getting into unless you're familiar with the controversial bestseller on which the script is based. The Constant Gardener is many things: an attack against pharmaceutical companies, a political statement about the appalling situation in Africa, and an exploration of the human side of poverty.

Shortly after sending his humanitarian wife on a journey into the upper regions of Africa, political activist and speaker Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) is approached in his office by a grim-faced man who gently informs him that a woman's brutalized and burned body has been recovered along the road on which his wife was traveling. While it is likely that she is dead, they need him to come for identification. Justin views the mangled corpse and confesses that it is indeed she. Several years before, he met Tessa (Rachel Weisz) when she defiantly stood up and contradicted his statements in a political speech about the economic conditions in Iraq since the invasion. Apologies led to coffee, coffee led to romance, romance led to marriage.

Moving in to Kenya to further their aligned causes for AIDS relief, the Quayle family was happy for some time. Tessa was extremely popular among the relief workers for her take-charge attitude, and her friendship with a local doctor sparked serious speculation. Also madly in love with her is their liaison to London, whose flirtations at times seem a little too overt. Pregnant and unwilling to give up her work, Tessa pours all of her energy into researching the pharmaceutical companies providing relief for the thousands of infected inhabitants of Kenya. What she unearths ultimately leads to her brutal murder, and it is left to her husband to take up the banner.

The Constant Gardener is an interesting and thought-provoking film no matter where you stand on the social issues that it brings up. It is very much an advocate for the horrific conditions in which the people of Africa dwell, revealing the poverty, raids, and warfare with gritty detail. Everyone's heart will be tugged to see starving children crying in the street, and screaming mothers turned away from relief centers. The film revolves around a mass conspiracy between a British parliament member (Bill Nighty) and a billion-dollar pill company mass producing and illegally testing drugs on unknowing participants. Viewers should know that right up front, depending on their views of the drug industry. There's also a sequence near the beginning of the film where Tessa praises the United Nations and accuses Britain of not following all avenues prior to the invasion of Iraq, but the issue seems to be a mild tantrum that never surfaces again.

There is a degree of content to be wary of in this film, but much less than I was expecting. Hollywood doesn't know a thing about true love and so they have our hero and heroine fall into bed after one date. The scene is extensive and involves lots of foreplay. It's used in several instances as a flashback. A video camera briefly sees Tessa's breasts as she rests pregnant in the tub; her husband teasingly slides his hand between her legs; we see backside nudity on her two separate times. Individuals reference that the woman in the burned out car was raped, and her companion had his private parts cut off. Speculation says that Tessa and the doctor were having an affair. In a flashback, we see her demurely offer to sleep with a man if he'll let her see an official, top secret document. (She never intends to go through with it.) We learn a minor character is gay. Language consists of perhaps a dozen f-words, the majority of them appearing in two scenes, and five abuses of Christ's name. Violence is implied more than shown, but while the camera jerks around crazily, we are fully aware that Justin is being beaten half to death. 

More annoying still was the direction of the piece, in rapid, unsteady shots meant to increase the urgency of the film and instead just making the audience feel as though they need to step back several paces. There are some beautiful filmed sequences, and both Weisz and Fiennes give heart-wrenching, soulful performances, but the whole thing seems a little too dragged out. It is valuable in the sense that it reminds us of the value of human life and the current situation in Africa, which Christians, as humanitarians, should be deeply concerned about. But the nonsexual nudity and controversial pivot of this film's spoke may encourage more discerning audiences to take up their pruning shears instead.

© www.charitysplace.com - all rights reserved.