Movie Review: The Constant Gardener

“The Constant Gardener”, a review
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Conclusion: If you’re as curious as I am about the paradox of “Africa’s beauty and Africa’s squalor”, this is a movie with scenery and revelations you’ll enjoy. But the backbone of “Constant Gardener” is summed up in the word secrets. Disclosures never become crystal clear, and you’ll go home humming “Big Pharmaceutical companies do inhuman human testing on the poor black Africans”. You’ll be sorry for the pathetic fate of poor Kenyans, and you’ll probably be sorry you went to see this film. For me, flashbacks hid a simple story inside a complex maze. I could have run a marathon with the energy I spent trying to understand all the relationships. Why this film was an award nominee is a secret. For me, this film is 3/10.

Scenery/Realism: There’s breathtaking scenery, both beautiful and ugly. Natural landscape in Kenya and Sudan is included. I’m sure these scenes were not contrived. I think the mud, trash heaps, and huts were real. Some scenes remind me of the expansive countryside grandeur characterized in the Siberia of “Doctor Zhivago”. 9/10

Character Depth: Who is this Fiennes character from the British Diplomatic Service? I don’t know. Not much depth. Who is the Rachel Weiss character? She seems to be two or three different people. Who are those other brogue bedraggled British-African people? The author and the director of “The Constant Gardener” built these characters like flat-bottomed john-boats, each with a shallow draft. 2/10

Music/Audio: If there was music, I didn’t hear it. Not memorable. I had difficulty understanding some of the audio. 3/10.

The Story: A British diplomat is delivering a boring speech for his boss. He is heckled by a wacko-critique (Weiss). Immediately, they fall in love and marry. Weiss uses her position as the new wife of a diplomat to do investigative activities at their post in Kenya. At the point of her investigation is a pharmaceutical company that’s testing new drugs on African citizens. Lots of the unwary citizens die, but the pharmaceutical company persists in more testing…all because of greed. Weiss is murdered because she’s trying to get the secret out in the open. Fiennes thinks he understands the whole complicated muck, and sets up his own pathetic murder to send someone high in the British hierarchy a message. Nothing becomes crystal clear. No depth.

This story is entitled “The Constant Gardener” because Fiennes is always retreating to the garden to think and hoe and give birth to something new. So, it’s a secret as to why the author lets it’s hero give up to hopelessness and send Fiennes to a solution without honor. The title could have been “The Gardener Who Gave In to the Weeds”. 3/10

Courtesy of Scarpacci, T.B.