Film Review
‘Constant Gardener’: Well Acted,
Well Intentioned, Inherently Flawed

By Alex Holachek (March 23, 2006)

The Constant Gardener, released on DVD about a month ago, strives to be an intelligent romance/thriller with a conscience. Perhaps it attempts too much.

The film has at its core a well-rendered love story, told mainly through flashbacks. The marriage of Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a likeably timid diplomat, to Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz), a stridently spunky human rights activist, initially seems improbable. And early in the film, the two expatriates, having taken up residence in Africa, appear to be downright incompatible.

So when Justin responds to the news that his wife has been murdered with a nigh-imperceptible lip quiver as he crushes a couple of aloe leaves, it’s difficult to imagine that the movie will soon become a redemptive, retroactive falling-back-in-love story that begins as Justin starts to uncover the reasons for his wife’s puzzling behaviors.

His initially hesitant search soon develops into an unsettling dive into the convoluted worlds of diplomacy, big business and human rights. Fiennes gives a nuanced performance as a man whose grief enables him to evolve from a quiet and retiring personality to a quiet and indomitable one.

The conspiracy that he gradually uncovers involves immoral pharmaceutical trials on defenseless African AIDs patients, a premise that would have packed more of an emotional punch if I knew whether such things actually happened. The film’s scenes of a raid on a refugee camp in Darfur, however, are undeniably powerful for their depiction of events that indubitably take place. Such things are certainly easy to dismiss when one lives the good life here in Falls Church, but rather more immediate when they are dramatized in front of you.

The Constant Gardener’s social consciousness, however, is a double-edged sword. I may be weird, but after watching minor characters in the film killed by AIDs or senseless violence, I found it hard to be as invested in the frequently-threatened life of the main character. The extras dying in the corners of the screen actually commanded more of my attention because I realized that unlike fictional Justin, they represented real people.

And therein lies one of the main dilemmas of the movie. It is beautifully shot, tensely plotted and Rachel Weisz won an Oscar for her performance, but you (well, I) felt guilty thinking about such things in the face of the enormous suffering that edges its way into the film. That reaction is surely not what director Fernando Meirelles had in mind.

Even more egregiously, however, this film follows a pattern that I hated in the rather inferior Nicole Kidman movie The Interpreter, and don’t much like now. Namely, a beautiful white woman shoulders the burden of fighting injustice in afflicted Africa. Now, I understand that beautiful white women sell Hollywood movies, but the fact that native African characters are relegated to such minor roles in movies which should essentially be about them is disturbing.

If all this sounds like a condemnation, it isn’t meant to be. The Constant Gardener’s conscience is something that should be celebrated, even if it ultimately weakens the impact of the film’s great acting and engaging storyline. But then again, it’s just a movie. And as a piece of art and entertainment, it succeeds.