The Constant Gardener (2005) Movie | Ralph Fiennes & Rachel Weisz | Review & Facts
[Music] the e e e e e hey guys welcome back to the picture review Channel guys in today’s video the movie we are going to talk about is called The Constant Gardener we will talk about what this movie is all the interesting facts about this movie we are going to give you a detailed review of this movie and we will talk in detail about the technical department music department pre-production filming post production budget and box office collection of this film we will also talk about the story of this film and I we’ll also give you a small review of the story of this film apart from this we will discuss about the facts of this film storyline starcast actor’s performance in the film and which character has played which role that’s why I request you friends to watch this video till the end if you are visiting our channel for the first time don’t forget to subscribe to our channel so let’s start the video the constant Garder is a 2005 drama Thriller film directed by Fernando mayores the screenplay by Jeffrey Kaine is based on John LC’s 2001 novel of the same name the story follows Justin Quail Ralph fien a British Diplomat in Kenya as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa Rachel Weiss an amnesty activist altim ating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love filmed on location in Lalani and the slums of kibber 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 Caro Nigeria the DVD versions were released in the United States on 1st January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13th of 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 kundai Denny Houston Bill Nai Pete poleth weight and Donald Sumpter coar the film was a critical and box office success and earned four Oscar nominations winning best supporting actress for wise plot Justin Quail a British Diplomat and Avid horticulturalist is confronted by Amnesty International activist Tessa during a lecture in London they strike up a romance and marry after she accompanies him to his posting in Kenya where she befriends Belgian Dr Arnold Bloom leading to rumors of an affair Tessa has no quals confronting corruption to the Chagrin of Justin superiors and they lose a child late in her pregnancy y connecting local deaths to Trials of a new drug dipra conducted by Kenyan based company 3bs Tessa and Arnold write a damaging report on the drug she gives it to Justin’s colleague Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner who sends it to Sir Bernard pelgrin head of the Africa desk at the foreign office pelgrin responds with an incriminating letter to Sandy which Tessa persuades him to show her and she steals it before departing for Loki with Arnold Sandy informs Justin that a white woman and black driver have been killed near Lake takana and that Tessa and Arnold shared a room at lwir before hiring a car Justin and Sandy identified Tessa’s mutilated body but Arnold’s whereabouts remain unknown police confiscate Tessa’s computer and files but Justin finds her keepsake box containing a letter from Sandy declaring his love for her and asking her to return pelgrin letter and records of 3 B’s tests after Tessa’s burial Justin learns from his colleague G that Tessa kept Arnold’s secret that he was gay as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya pursuing the truth about his wife’s murder Justin follows the trail of her report he is briefly detained by police and confronts 3 B’s CEO Kenny Curtis but receives no answers returning to London Justin’s passport is is confiscated he dines with pelgrin who lies that Arnold must have murdered Tessa and believes that Justin has his incriminating letter Justin meets with Tessa’s cousin and lawyer ham and they access her computer files to reveal her investigation into diraa and its manufacturer pharmaceutical conglomerate kdh which hired three bees to test the drug on unsuspecting kenyons Justin receives a threatening note and ham provides him with a fake passport to travel to Germany where he meets Tessa’s contact Berget part of a pharmaceutical Watchdog group the group has been targeted and she is reluctant to speak and Justin is attacked in his hotel room and warned to stop investigating Arnold’s body is found having been tortured to death while the announcement of a safe deaa causes KD’s share price to sore returning to Kenya Justin confronts Sandy who admits that Tessa’s report was silenced to save Katie from spending Millions redeveloping the drug Justin is approached by Curtis who has been betrayed by kdh and brought to a mass grave of deaa test subjects Curtis points Justin to Dr ler deraa’s inventor who has fled to Sudan Tim Donahue a friend in British intelligence confirms that pelgrin had Tessa and Arnold killed unable to convince Justin to return home he gives him a gun Justin travels to to confront ler who is treating remote villagers to atone for the lives claimed by his drug the village is attacked by Raiders but Justin and ler Escape in a un Aid plane and ler reveals that he has pelgrin letter Tessa convinced him to record the truth about dipra but he changed his mind informing kdh that Tessa and Arnold were on route to expose the company to the UN Justin convinces the pilot to mail pellerin’s letter to H and to drop him off at Lake turana removing the bullets from his gun his final thoughts are of Tessa before he is killed by KD’s henchmen in London at Tessa and Justin’s memorial service pelgrin lies that Justin committed suicide in the same place his wife died ham announces the reading of an epistle but instead reads pelgrin letter exposing the deaths caused by dipra and the subsequent coverup peline storms out as ham implic Ates the British government kdh and public complacency regarding the human cost of medicine they take for granted cast Ralph fien as Justin Quail Rachel Weiss as Tessa Abbott Quail Danny Houston as Sandy Woodrow Hubbert kund as Arnold Bloom Archie Punjabi as G Pearson Bill Nagi as Sir Bernard pelgrin Gerard moli as Sir Kenneth Curtis Pete poleth weight as L beer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donahue Richard McCabe as Arthur Hammond AKA ham Juliet Aubrey as Gloria Woodrow Nick reading as Crick Christopher okinda as Doctor box office the film’s worldwide gross was 82466 670 critical response on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener has a score of 84% based on a 194 critical reviews with an average rating of 7.6 to 10 the consensus reads the Constant Gardener is a smart gripping and suspenseful Thriller with Rich performances from the leads it also has a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 39 critics audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to f scale Roger eert of the Chicago Sun Times called it one of the year’s best films 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 mange of hack Cuts impressionistic close-ups and tropical swelter but why Justin needs to know did Tessa receive an email asking her what were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hilton Friday night does Justin know the murder of Tessa takes place right at the start of the Constant Gardener so it is not revealing too much to mention it the movie is a progress back into her life and a journey of Discovery for Justin who discovers a woman he never really knew the flashback structure told in remembered moments passages of dialogue scenes that are interrupted and completed later is typical of John lcar whose novels resemble chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all of the others take too many moves it is a style suited to the gifts of the Brazilian director Fernando mereles whose great city of God 2002 told a story that was composed of countless tributaries that all flow together into a mighty narrative stream the fragmented style is the best way to tell this story both for the novel and the movie The Constant Gardener is not a logical exercise beginning with mystery and ending at truth but are circling around an elusive conspiracy understand who the players are and how they are willing to compromise themselves and you can Glimpse cruel outlines beneath the public relations facade as the drug companies pour AIDS drugs into Africa are they using their programs to mask the testing of other drugs no drug company does something for nothing lari has a character observe the Constant Gardener may be the angriest story car has ever told certainly his elegant pros and the oblique shorthand of the dialogue shows the writer forcing himself to turn Fury into style his novel involves drug companies who test their products on the poor of the third world and are willing to accept the deaths that may occur because after all those people don’t count why not because no one is there to count them do drug companies really do this the recent verdict against the makers of voxx indicates that a jury thought MK sold a drug it knew was dangerous facts are the bones beneath the skin of a lcar novel either he knows what he’s talking about or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to The Constant Gardener plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments what makes the film extraordinary is that it also plays as a love story and as an examination of the Mysteries of the heart the performances need to be very good to carry us through sequences in which nobody good or evil seems very sure of the total picture Ralph Fen plays Justin as a bureaucrat who seems detached from issues he’s the opposite of Tessa as he tries to get to the bottom of her death he sifts through his discoveries like an accountant unwilling to go home for the day until the books are balanced one way of looking at Tessa’s death is that she was a hotthead who had an affair with a hand some African man went where she shouldn’t have and got caught in one of those African border killings where toll collecting Soldiers with AK-47s enforce whatever they think is the law another way to look at it is to give her the benefit of the doubt to wonder what was behind the embarrassing question she asked at a press conference to ask why statistics seem to be missing if a drug study is designed to generate them as he probes through the wreckage of his wife’s life Justin encounters an array of characters who could have been airlifted in from Graham green or from other lcar novels of course Hubert cond plays Arnold Bloom the African who is not in fact Tessa’s driver but a doctor who is her colleague Danny Houston tall and courtly like his father John and like John often smiling at a private joke plays Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner on the scene Bill Nucky that actor who often seems to be frowning through a migraine is s Bernard pelgrin head of the foreign office and thus Justin and sy’s boss and Pete postlethwait looking as if he has been left out too long in the weather is L beer a drug company man who works in the field at what it is dangerous to say The Constant Gardener begins with a strong angry story and peoples it with actors who let it happen to them instead of rushing ahead to check off the surprises it seems solid ly grounded in its Kenyan locations like city of god it feels organically rooted like many lari stories it begins with grief and proceeds with sadness toward horror its closing scenes are as cynical about International politics and commerce as I can imagine I would like to believe they are an exaggeration but I fear they are not this is one of the year’s best films there are some films which have Oscar Contender written all the way through them like a stick of rock this version of John lear’s 2001 novel is conceived on a grand almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performances from actors who come the New Year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes like The English Patient there’s a fair bit of grand standing but this film more than carries it off it shrewd producer Simon Channing Williams had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando murel is to direct and meles has brought to this conspiracy Thriller come love story the unceasing energy and attack that characterized his Sensational debut film city of God there is certainly none of the torpid Melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of lare a reflex perhaps of his status as the most literary of spy novelists whose works are sometimes thought of with a kind of brides head OBO playing regretfully somewhere in the background instead morel’s gives us something gutsier and less English we get rage Restless curiosity agonized self-reproach and whole Landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia the performances from Ralph fien and Rachel wise are excellent perhaps the very best of their careers and there is First Rate support particularly from Bill NY as the mempop and Mandarin from the foreign office the constant Garden is a love story told in retrospect fien is Justin a shy introspective Junior Diplomat Who falls in love with Tess Weiss a beautiful and fiery political activist they marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya Justin is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact-f finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker he will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess’s murder which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV positive Africans going up to the top of the British establishment more importantly perhaps even than this Justin uncovers painful secrets about his marriage involving a messy and very human renegotiation of Friendship with his colleague Sandy another very good performance from Danny Houston though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent these disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before as someone with humanity and idealism that though flawed exceeded his own posum asly he falls in love with her again his grief is transformed and charged with a Visionary insight into Tess’s real life the film is about betrayal personal and political but it provides A New Perspective On Em forer’s remark about whether to betray one’s friend or one’s country this is about being betrayed by one’s country and one’s friend the two types of treason are conflated and Justin finds himself in the midst of a greenan Purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back the spiritual Agony is compounded when Justin’s detective work takes him to Germany and then to London where Bill ny’s Sinister mandrin takes him to luncheon at his St james’ Club the Brazilian Mel is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological Detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals there is a terrific pulse of energy in this film a voltage which drives it over 2 hours it is not just an intricate despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain’s interests and waning foreign Prestige there is real anger here and a real sense that it is worthwhile striking back against wrongdoing its Global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic while also pointing up Justin’s desolate loneliness the constant Garder is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 10 years ago the constant Gardner is a 2005 drama Thriller film directed by Fernando mayores the screenplay by Jeffrey Kane is based on John L’s 2001 novel of the same name the story follows Justin Quail Ralph fien a British Diplomat in Kenya as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa Rachel Weiss an amnesty activist alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love filmed on location in loang galani and the slums of kibber 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 Carno Nigeria the DVD versions were released in the United States on 1st January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13th of 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 kundai Denny Houston Bill Nai Pete poleth weight and Donald Suter co-star the film was a critical and box office success and earned four Oscar nominations winning best supporting actress for wise plot Justin Quail a British Diplomat and Avid horticulturalist is confronted by Amnesty International activist Tessa during a lecture in London they strike up a romance and Mary after she accompanies him to his posting in Kenya where she befriends Belgian Dr Arnold Bloom leading to rumors of an affair Tessa has no arms confronting corruption to the Chagrin of Justin superiors and they lose a child late in her pregnancy connecting local deaths to Trials of a new drug dipra conducted by Kenyan based company 3bs Tessa and Arnold write a damaging report on the drug she gives it to Justin’s colleague Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner who sends it to S Bernard pelgrin head of the Africa desk at the foreign office pelgrin responds with an incriminating letter to Sandy which Tessa persuades him to show her and she steals it before departing for Loki with Arnold Sandy informs Justin that a white woman and black driver have been killed near Lake takana and that Tessa and Arnold shared a room at lwir before hiring a car Justin and Sandy identifi Tessa’s mutilated body but Arnold’s whereabouts remain unknown police confiscate Tessa’s computer and files but Justin finds her keepsake box containing a letter from Sandy declaring his love for her and asking her to return pel’s letter and records of 3bs tests after Tessa’s burial Justin learns from his colleague G that Tessa kept Arnold’s secret that he was gay as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya pursuing the truth about his wife’s murder Justin follows the trail of her report he is briefly detained by police and confronts three be CEO Kenny Curtis but receives no answers returning to London Justin’s passport is confiscated he dines with pelgrin who lies that Arnold must have murdered Tessa and believes that Justin has his incriminating letter Justin meets with Tessa’s cousin and lawyer ham and they access her computer files to reveal her investigation into dipra and its manufacturer pharmaceutical conglomerate kdh which hired three bees to test the drug on unsuspecting kenyons Justin receives a threatening note and ham provides him with a fake passport to travel to Germany where he meets Tessa’s contact Berget part of a pharmaceutical Watchdog group the group has been targeted and she is reluctant to speak and Justin is attacked in his hotel room and warned to stop investigating Arnold’s body is found having been tortured to death while the announcement of a safe deaa causes KD’s share price to sore returning to Kenya Justin confronts Sandy who admits that Tessa’s report was silenced to save kdh from spending Millions redeveloping the drug Justin is approached by Curtis who has been betrayed by kdh and brought to a mass grave of deaa test subjects Curtis points Justin to Dr lbe deraa’s inventor who was fled to Sudan Tim Donahue a friend in British intelligence confirms that pelgrin had Tessa and AR Ral killed unable to convince Justin to return home he gives him a gun Justin travels to confront ler who is treating remote villagers to atone for the lives claimed by his drug the village is attacked by Raiders but Justin and ler Escape in a un Aid plane and ler reveals that he has pelgrin letter Tessa convinced him to record the truth about diraa but he changed his mind informing kdh that Tessa and Arnold were on route to expose the company to the UN Justin convinces the pilot to mail pellerin’s letter to ham and to drop him off at Lake turana removing the bullets from his gun his final thoughts are of Tessa before he is killed by KD’s henchman in London at tesser and Justin’s memorial service pelgrin lies that Justin committed suicide in the same place his wife died ham announces the reading of an epistle but instead reads pelgrin letter exposing the deaths caused by diraa and the subsequent coverup peline storms out as ham implicates the British government kdh and public complacency regarding the human cost of medicine they take for granted cast Ralph Fen as Justin Quail Rachel Weiss as Tessa Abbott Quail Danny Houston as Sandy Woodrow Hubert kundai as Arnold Bloom Archie Punjabi as G Pearson Bill Nagi as Sir Bernard pelgrin Gerard S as Sir Kenneth Curtis Pete pulleth weight as law beer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donahue Richard McCabe as Arthur Hamond AKA ham Juliet Aubrey as Gloria Woodrow Nick reading as Crick Christopher okinda as Doctor box office the film’s worldwide gross was 82466 670 critical response on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener has a score of 84% based on a 194 critical reviews with an average rating of 7.6 to1 the consensus reads the constant Garder is a smart gripping and suspenseful Thriller with Rich performances from the leads it also has a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 39 critics audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to f scale Roger eert of the Chicago Sun Times called it one of the year’s best films 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 mange of hack Cuts impressionistic close-ups and tropical swelter but why Justin needs to know did Tessa receive an email asking her what were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hilton Friday night does Justin know the murder of Tessa takes place right at the start of the Constant Gardener so it is not revealing too much to mention it the movie is a progress back into her life and a journey of Discovery for Justin who discovers a woman he never really knew the flashback structure told in remembered moments passages of dialogue scenes that are interrupted and completed later is typical of John lcar whose novels resemble chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all of the others take too many moves it is a style suited to the gifts of the Brazilian director Fernando mereles whose great city of God 2002 told a story that was composed of countless tributaries that all flow together into a mighty narrative stream the fragmented style is the best way to tell this story both for the novel and the movie The Constant Gardener is not a logical exercise beginning with mystery and ending at truth but are circling around an elusive conspiracy understand who the players are and how they are willing to compromise themselves and you can Glimpse cruel outlines beneath the public relations facade as the drug companies pour AIDS drugs into Africa are they using their programs to mask the testing of other drugs no drug company does something for nothing lukari has a character observe the Constant Gardener may be the angriest story lcar has ever told certainly his elegant pros and the oblique shorthand of the dialogue shows the writer forcing himself to turn Fury into style his novel involves drug companies who test their products on the poor of the third world and are willing to accept the deaths that may occur because after all those people don’t count why not because no one is there to count them do drug companies really do this the recent verdict against the makers of VXX indicates that a jury thought MK sold a drug it knew was dangerous facts are the bones beneath the skin of a lcar novel either he knows what he’s talking about or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to The Constant Gardener plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments what makes the film extraordinary is that it also plays as a love story and as an examination of the Mysteries of the heart the performances need to be very good to carry us through sequences in which nobody good or evil seems very sure of the total picture Ralph fien plays Justin as a bureaucrat who seems detached from issues he’s the opposite of Tessa as he tries to get to the bottom of her death he sifts through his discoveries like an accountant unwilling to go home for the day until the books are balanced one way of looking at Tessa’s death is that she was a hothead who had an affair with a handsome African man went where she shouldn’t have and got caught in one of those African border killings where toll collecting Soldiers with AK-47s inforce whatever they think is the law another way to look at it is to give her the benefit of the doubt to wonder what was behind the embarrassing questions she asked at a press conference to ask why statistics seem to be missing if a drug study is designed to generate them as he probes through the wreckage of his wife’s life Justin encounters an array of characters who could have been airlifted in from Graham green or from other lcar novels of course Hubert cond plays Arnold Bloom the African who is not in fact Tessa’s driver but a doctor who is her colleague Danny Houston tall and courtly like his father John and like John often smiling at a private joke play plays Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner on the scene Bill Nucky that actor who often seems to be frowning through a migraine is s Bernard pelgrin head of the foreign office and thus Justin and sy’s boss and Pete postlethwait looking as if he has been left out too long in the weather is LA beer a drug company man who works in the field at what it is dangerous to say The Constant Gardener begins with a strong angry story and peoples it without actors who let it happen to them instead of rushing ahead to check off the surprises it seems solidly grounded in its Kenyon locations like city of god it feels organically rooted like many lari stories it begins with grief and proceeds with sadness toward horror its closing scenes are as cynical about International politics and commerce as I can imagine I would like to believe they are an exaggeration but I fear they are not this is one of the years best films there are some films which have Oscar Contender written all the way through them like a stick of rock this version of John lear’s 2001 novel is conceived on a grand almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performances from actors who come the New Year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes like The English Patient there’s a fair bit of grand standing but this film more than carries it off it its shrew producer Simon Channing Williams had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando meles to direct and meles has brought to this conspiracy Thriller come love story the unceasing energy and attack that characterized his Sensational debut film city of God there is certainly none of the torpid Melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of lare a reflex perhaps of his status as the most literary of spy novelists whose works are sometimes thought of with a kind of brides head OBO playing regretfully somewhere in the background instead morel’s gives us something gutsier and less English we get rage Restless curiosity agonized self-reproach and whole Landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia the performances from Ralph fien and Rachel wise are excellent perhaps the very best of their careers and there is First Rate report particularly from Bill NY as the mopan Mandarin from the foreign office The Constant Gardener is a love story told in retrospect fien is Justin a shy introspective Junior Diplomat Who falls in love with Tess Weiss a beautiful and fiery political activist they marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya Justin is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact-f finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker he will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess’s murder which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV positive Africans going up to the top of the British establishment more importantly perhaps even than this Justin uncovers painful secrets about his marriage involving a messy and very human renegotiation of Friendship with his colleague Sandy another very good performance from Danny Houston though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent these disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before as someone with humanity and idealism that though flawed exceeded his own postumus he falls in love with her again his grief is transformed and charged with a Visionary insight into Tess’s real life the film is about betrayal personal and political but it provides A New Perspective On Em Foster’s remark about whether to betray one’s friend or one’s country this is about being betrayed by one’s country and one’s friend the two types of treason are conflated and Justin finds himself in the midst of a greenan Purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back the spiritual Agony is compounded when Justin’s detective work takes him to Germany and then to London where Bill ny’s Sinister mandrin takes him to luncheon at his St james’ Club the Brazilian mels is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological Detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals there is a terrific pulse of energy in this film a voltage which drives it over 2 hours it is not just an intricate despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain’s interests and waning foreign Prestige there is real anger here and a real sense that it is worth while striking back against wrongdoing its Global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic while also pointing up Justin’s desolate loneliness the constant Gardner is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 10 years ago The Constant Gardener is a 2005 drama Thriller film directed by Fernando mayores the screen play by Jeffrey Kane is based on John L’s 2001 novel of the same name the story follows Justin Quail Ralph fien a British Diplomat in Kenya as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa Rachel Weiss an amnesty activist alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love filmed on location in Lalani and the slums of kibber a section of Nairobi Kenya circumstances in the area affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Guard Garder trust in order to provide basic education for these Villages the plot was vaguely based on a real life case in Caro Nigeria the DVD versions were released in the United States on 1st January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13th of 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 Bert kundai Denny Houston Bill Nai Pete poleth weight and Donald Sumpter Costa the film was a critical and box office success and earned four Oscar nominations winning best supporting actress for wise plot Justin Quail a British Diplomat and Avid horticulturalist is confronted by Amnesty International activist Tessa during a lecture in London they strike up a romance and Mary after she accompanies him to his posting in Kenya where she befriends Belgian Dr Arnold Bloom leading to rumors of an affair Tessa has no quals confronting corruption to the Chagrin of Justin superiors and they lose a child late in her pregnancy connecting local deaths to Trials of a new drug dipra conducted by Kenyan based company 3bs Tessa and Arnold write a damaging report on the drug she gives it to Justin’s colleague Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner who said sends it to Sir Bernard pelgrin head of the Africa desk at the foreign office pelgrin responds with an incriminating letter to Sandy which Tessa persuades him to show her and she steals it before departing for Loki with Arnold Sandy informs Justin that a white woman and black driver have been killed near Lake takana and that Tessa and Arnold shared a room at lwar before hiring a car Justin and Sandy identify Tessa’s mutilated body but Arnold’s whereabouts remain unknown police confiscate Tessa’s computer and files but Justin finds her keepsake box containing a letter from Sandy declaring his love for her and asking her to return pellerin’s letter and records of three be’s tests after Tessa’s burial Justin learns from his colleague gaer that Tessa kept Arnold secret that he was gay as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya pursuing the truth about his wife’s murder Justin follows the trail of her report he is briefly detained by police and confronts 3’s CEO Kenny Curtis but receives no answers returning to London Justin’s passport is confiscated he dines with pelgrin who lies that Arnold must have murdered Tessa and believes that Justin has his incriminating letter Justin meets with Tessa’s cousin and lawyer ham and they access her computer files to reveal her investigation into dipra and its manufacturer pharmaceutical conglomerate kdh which hired three bees to test the drug on unsuspecting kenyons Justin receives a threatening note and ham provides him with a fake passport to travel to Germany where he meets Tessa’s contact Berget part of a pharmaceutical Watchdog group the group has been targeted and she is reluctant to speak and Justin is attacked in his hotel room and warned to stop investigating Arnold’s body is found having been tortured to death while the announcement of a safe deaa causes KD’s share price to soore returning to Kenya Justin confronts Sandy who admits that Tessa’s report was silenced to save kdh from spending Millions redeveloping the drug Justin is approached by Curtis who has been betrayed by kdh and brought to a mass grave of deaa test subjects Curtis points Justin to Dr lbe deraa’s inventor who has fled to Sudan Tim Donahue a friend in British intelligence confirms that pelgrin had Tessa and Arnold killed unable to convince Justin to return home he gives him a gun Justin travels to confront ler who is treating remote villagers to aone for the lives claimed by his drug the village is attacked by Raiders but Justin and ler Escape in a un Aid plane and laer reveals that he has pelgrin letter Tessa convinced him to record the truth about Di praa but he changed his mind informing kdh that Tessa and Arnold were on route to expose the company to the UN Justin convinces the pilot to mail pelegrin letter to ham and to drop him off at Lake turana removing the bullets from his gun his final thoughts are of Tessa before he is killed by KD’s henchmen in London at tesser and Justin’s memorial service pelgrin lies that Justin committed suicide in the same place his wife died ham announces the reading of an epistle but instead reads pelgrin letter exposing the deaths caused by diraa and the subsequent coverup peline storms out as ham implicates the British government kdh and public complacency regarding the human cost of medicine they take for granted cast Ralph fien as Justin Quail Rachel Weiss as Tessa Abbott Quail Danny Houston as Sandy Woodrow Hubert kundai as Bloom Archie Punjabi as G Pearson Bill Nagi as Sir Bernard pelgrin Gerard moli as Sir Kenneth Curtis Pete poleth weight as law beer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donahue Richard McCabe as Arthur Hammond AKA ham Juliet Aubry as Gloria Woodrow Nick reading as Crick Christopher okinda as Doctor box office the film’s worldwide gross was 82466 670 critical response on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener has a score of 84% based on a 194 critical reviews with an average rating of 7.6 to1 the consensus reads the Constant Gardener is a smart gripping and suspenseful Thriller with Rich performances from the leads it also has a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 39 critics audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an a average grade of B on an A plus to f scale Roger eert of the Chicago Sun Times called it one of the year’s best films 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 mange of hack Cuts impress istic close-ups and tropical swelter but why Justin needs to know did Tessa receive an email asking her what were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hilton Friday night does Justin know the murder of Tessa takes place right at the start of the Constant Gardener so it is not revealing too much to mention it the movie is a progress back into her life and a journey of Discovery for Justin who discovers a woman he never really knew the flashback stru structure told in remembered moments passages of dialogue scenes that are interrupted and completed later is typical of John laar whose novels resemble chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all of the others take too many moves it is a style suited to the gifts of the Brazilian director Fernando meles whose great city of God 2002 told a story that was composed of countless tributaries that all flow together into a mighty narrative stream the fragmented style is the best way to tell this story both for the novel and the movie The Constant Gardener is not a logical exercise beginning with mystery and ending at truth but a circling around an elusive conspiracy understand who the players are and how they are willing to compromise themselves and you can Glimpse cruel outlines beneath the public relations facade as the drug companies pour AIDS drugs into Africa are they using their programs to mask the testing of other drugs no drug company does something for nothing lari has a character observe the Constant Gardener may be the angriest story lcar has ever told certainly his elegant pros and the oblique shorthand of the dialogue shows the writer forcing himself to turn Fury into style his novel involves drug companies who test their products on the poor of the third world and are willing to accept the deaths that may occur because after all those people don’t count why not because no one is there to count them do drug companies really do this the recent verdict against the makers of voxx indicates that a jury thought MC sold a drug it knew was dangerous facts are the bones beneath the skin of a lcar novel either he knows what he’s talking about or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to The Constant Gardener plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments what makes the film extraordinary is that it also plays as a love story and as an examination of the Mysteries of the heart the performances need to be very good to carry us through sequences in which nobody good or evil seems very sure of the total picture Ralph Fen plays Justin as a bureaucrat who seems detached from issues he’s the opposite of Tessa as he tries to get to the bottom of her death he sifts through his discoveries like an accountant unwilling to go home for the day until the books are balanced one way of looking at Tessa’s death is that she was a hothead who had an affair with a handsome African man went where she shouldn’t have and got caught in one of those African border killings where toll collecting Soldiers with AK-47s enforce whatever they think is the law another way to look at it is to give her the benefit of the doubt to wonder what was behind the embarrassing questions she asked at a press conference to ask why statistics seem to be missing if a drug study is designed to generate them as he probes through the wreckage of his wife’s life Justin encounters an array of characters who could have been airlifted in from Graham green or from other lcar novels of course Hubert cond plays Arnold Bloom the African who is not in fact Tessa’s driver but a doctor who is her colleague Danny Houston tall and courtly like his father John and like John often smiling at a private joke plays Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner on the scene Bill Nucky that actor who often seems to be frowning through a migraine is s Bernard pelgrin head of the foreign office and thus Justin and sy’s boss and Pete postlethwait looking as if he has been left out too long in the weather is L beer a drug company man who works in the field at what it is dangerous to say The Constant Gardener begins with a strong angry story and peoples it with actors who let it happen to them instead of rushing ahead to check off the surprises it seems solidly grounded in its Kenyan locations like city of god it feels organically rooted like many lucari stories it begins with grief and proceeds with sadness toward horror its closing scenes are as cynical about International politics and commerce as I can imag imagine I would like to believe they are an exaggeration but I fear they are not this is one of the year’s best films there are some films which have Oscar Contender written all the way through them like a stick of rock this version of John lear’s 2001 novel is conceived on a grand almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performances from actors who come the New Year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes like The English Patient there’s a fair bit of grandstanding but this film more than carries it off its shrewd producer Simon Channing Williams had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando meles to direct and meles has brought to this conspiracy Thriller come love story the unceasing energy and attack that characterized his Sensational debut film city of God there is certainly none of the torpid Melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of lare a reflex perhaps of his status as the most literary of spy novelists whose works are sometimes thought of with a kind of brides head OBO playing regretfully somewhere in the background instead morel’s gives us something gutsier and less English we get rage Restless curiosity agonized self-reproach and whole Landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia the performances from Ralph fien and Rachel wise are excellent perhaps the very best of their careers and there is First Rate support particularly from Bill Nye is the mephistophelian Mandarin from the foreign office The Constant Gardener is a love story told in retrospect fien is Justin a shy introspective Junior Diplomat Who falls in love with Tess Weiss a beautiful and fiery political activist they marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya just is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact-f finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker he will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess’s murder which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV positive Africans going up to the top of the British establishment more importantly perhaps even than this Justin uncovers painful secrets about his marriage involving a messy and very human renegotiation of friendship with his colleague Sandy another very good performance from Danny Houston though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent these disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before as someone with humanity and idealism that though flawed exceeded his own postumus he falls in love with her again his grief is transformed and charged with a Visionary insight into Tess’s real life the film is about betrayal personal and political but it provides A New Perspective On Em forer’s remark about whether to betray one’s friend or one’s country this is about being betrayed by one’s country and one’s friend the two types of treason are conflated and Justin finds himself in the midst of a greenan Purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back the spiritual Agony is compounded when Justin’s detective work takes him to Germany and then into London where Bill ny’s Sinister mandrin takes him to luncheon at his St james’ Club the Brazilian mels is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological Detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals there is a terrific pulse of energy in this film a voltage which drives it over 2 hours it is not just an intricate despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain’s interests and waning foreign Prestige there is real anger here and a real sense that it is worthwhile striking back against wrongdoing its Global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic while also pointing up Justin’s desolate loneliness The Constant Gardener is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 10 years ago The Constant Gardener is a 2005 drama Thriller film directed by Fernando mayores the screenplay by Jeffrey Kaine is based on John L’s 2001 novel of the same name the story follows Justus in Quail Ralph fien a British Diplomat in Kenya as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa Rachel Weiss an amnesty activist alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love filmed on location in Lalani and the slums of kibber 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 Caro Nigeria the DVD versions were released in the United States on 1st January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13th of March 2006 Justin’s gentle but diligent attention into his plants is a recurring background theme from which image the film’s title is derived Hubert kundai Denny Houston Bill Nai Pete poleth weight and Donald Sumpter CoStar the film was a critical and box office success and earned four Oscar nominations winning best supporting actress for wise plot Justin Quail a British Diplomat and Avid horticulturalist is confronted by Amnesty International activist Tessa during a lecture in London they strike up a romance and marry after she accompanies him to his posting in Kenya where she befriends Belgian Dr Arnold Bloom leading to rumors of an affair Tessa has no quals confronting corruption to the Chagrin of Justin superiors and they lose a child late in her pregnancy connecting local deaths to Trials of a new drug dipra conducted by Kenyan based company 3bs tesser and Arnold write a damaging report on the drug she gives it to Justin’s colleague Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner who sends it to Sir Bernard pelgrin head of the Africa desk at the foreign office pelgrin responds with an incriminating letter to Sandy which Tessa persuades him to show her and she steals it before departing for Loki with Arnold Sandy informs Justin that a white woman and black driver had been killed near Lake tana and that Tessa and Arnold shared a room at lir before hiring a car Justin and Sandy identified Tessa’s mutilated body but Arnold’s whereabouts remain unknown police confiscate Tessa’s computer and files but Justin finds her keepsake box containing a letter from Sandy declaring his love for her and asking her to return pelgrin letter and records of 3bs tests after Tessa’s burial Justin learns from his colleague gaer that Tessa kept Arnold’s Secret that he was gay as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya pursuing the truth about his wife’s murder Justin follows the trail of her report he is briefly detained by police and confronts 3bs CEO Kenny Curtis but receives no answers returning to London Justin’s passport is confiscated he dines with pelgrin who lies that Arnold must have murdered Tessa and believes that Justin has his incriminating letter Justin meets with Tessa’s cousin and lawyer ham and they access her computer files to reveal her investigation into dipra and its manufacturer pharmaceutical conglomerate kdh which hired three bees to test the drug on unsuspecting kenyons Justin receives a threatening note and ham provides him with a fake passport to travel to Germany where he meets Tessa’s contact Berget part of a pharmaceutical Watchdog group the group has been targeted and she is reluctant to speak and Justin is attacked in his hotel room and warned to stop investigating Arnold’s body is found having been tortured to death while the announcement of a safe deaa causes KD’s share price to soore returning to Kenya just in confront Sandy who admits that Tessa’s report was silenced to save kdh from spending Millions redeveloping the drug Justin his approached by Curtis who has been betrayed by kdh and brought to a mass grave of deax ATT test subjects Curtis points Justin to Dr ler deraa’s inventor who has fled to Sudan Tim Donahue a friend in British intelligence confirms that pelgrin had Tessa and Arnold killed unable to convince Justin to return home he gives him a gun Justin travels to confront ler who is treating remote villagers to atone for the lives claimed by his drug the village is attacked by Raiders but Justin and ler Escape in a un Aid plan and ler reveals that he has pelgrin letter Tessa convinced him to record the truth about dipra but he changed his mind informing kdh that Tessa and Arnold were on route to expose the company to the UN Justin convinces the pilot to mail pelgrin letter to ham and to drop him off at Lake turana removing the bullets from his gun his final thoughts are of Tessa before he is killed by KD’s henchmen in London at tesser and Justin’s memorial service pelgrin lies that Justin committed suicide in the same place his wife died ham announces the reading of an epistle but instead reads pellerin’s letter exposing the deaths caused by dipra and the subsequent coverup peline storms out as ham implicates the British government kdh and public complacency regarding the human cost of medicine they take for granted cast Ralph fien as justing Quail Rachel Weiss as Tessa Abbott Quail Danny Houston as Sandy Woodrow Hubert kundai as Arnold Bloom Archie Punjabi as G Pearson Bill Nagi as Sir Bernard pelgrin Gerard moli as Sir Kenneth Curtis Pete poleth weight as LW beer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donahue Richard McCabe as Arthur Hammond AKA ham Juliet Aubrey as Gloria Woodrow Nick reading as Crick Christopher okinda as Doctor box office the film’s world World Wide gross was 82466 670 critical response on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener has a score of 84% based on a 194 critical reviews with an average rating of 7.6 to 10 the consensus reads the Constant Gardener is a smart gripping and suspenseful Thriller with Rich performances from the leads it also has a score of 82 out of 100 on at a Critic based on 39 critics audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to f scale Roger eert of the Chicago Sun Times called it one of the year’s best films USA Today noted that the films passion betrayal gorgeous cinematography social commentary Stellar performances and clever wit puts it in a special category near Perfection however Michael Atkinson of the The Village Voice criticized the film as a cannonballing melange of hack Cuts impressionistic close-ups and tropical swelter but why Justin needs to know did Tessa receive an email asking her what were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hilton Friday night does Justin know the murder of Tessa takes place right at the start of the constant Garder so it is not revealing too much to mention it the movie is a progress back into her life and a journey of Discovery for Justin who discovers a woman he never really knew the flashback structure told in remembered moments passages of dialogue scenes that are interrupted and completed later is typical of John lcar whose novels resemble chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all of the others take too many moves it is a style suited to the gifts of the Brazilian director Fernando meles whose great city of God 2002 told a story that was composed of countless tributaries that all flowed together into a mighty narrative stream the fragmented style is the best way to tell this story both for the novel and the movie The Constant Gardener is not a logical exercise beginning with mystery and ending at truth but a circling around an elusive conspiracy understand who the players are and how they are willing to compromise themselves and you can glim cruel outlines beneath the public relations facade as the drug companies pour AIDS drugs into Africa are they using their programs to mask the testing of other drugs no drug company does something for nothing lcar has a character observe the Constant Gardener may be the angriest story lcar has ever told certainly his elegant pros and the oblique shorthand of the dialogue shows the writer forcing himself to turn Fury into style his novel involves drug companies who test their products on the poor of the third world and are willing to accept the deaths that may occur because after all those people don’t count why not because no one is there to count them do drug companies really do this the recent verdict against the makers of voxx indicates that a jury thought Merc sold a drug it knew was dangerous facts are the bones beneath the skin of a lcar novel either he knows what he’s talking about or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to The Constant Gardener plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments what makes the film extraordinary is that it also plays as a love story and as an examination of the Mysteries of the heart the performances need to be very good to carry us through sequences in which nobody good or evil seems very sure of the total picture Ralph Fen plays Justin as a bureaucrat who seems detached from issues he’s the opposite of Tessa as he tries to get to the bottom of her death he sifts through his discoveries like an accountant unwilling to go home for the day until the books are balanced one way of looking at Tessa’s death is that she was a hothead who had an affair with a handsome African man went where she shouldn’t have and got caught in one of those African border killings where toll collecting Soldiers with AK-47s enforce whatever they think think is the law another way to look at it is to give her the benefit of the doubt to wonder what was behind the embarrassing question she asked at a press conference to ask why statistics seem to be missing if a drug study is designed to generate them as he probes through the wreckage of his wife’s life Justin encounters an array of characters who could have been airlifted in from Gram green or from other lcar novels of course Hubert cond plays Arnold Blue the African who is not in fact Tessa’s driver but a doctor who is her colleague Danny Houston tall and courtly like his father John and like John often smiling at a private joke plays Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner on the scene Bill Nucky that actor who often seems to be frowning through a migraine is s Bernard pelgrin head of the foreign office and thus Justin and sy’s boss and Pete poleth weight looking as if he has been left out too long in the weather is LA beer a drug company man who works in the field at what it is dangerous to say The Constant Gardener begins with a strong angry story and peoples it with actors who let it happen to them instead of rushing ahead to check off the surprises it seems solidly grounded in its Kenyan locations like city of god it feels organically rooted like many lucari stories it begins with grief and proceeds with sadness toward horror its closing scenes are as cynical about International politics and commerce as I can imagine I would like to believe they are an exaggeration but I fear they are not this is one of the year’s best films there are some films which have Oscar Contender written all the way through them like a stick of rock this version of John L’s 2001 novel is conceived on a grand almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performan from actors who come the New Year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes like The English Patient there’s a fair bit of grand standing but this film more than carries it off its shrewd producer Simon Channing Williams had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando meles to direct and meles has brought to this conspiracy Thriller come love story the unceasing energy and attack that characterized his Sensational debut film city of God there is certainly none of the torpid Melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of lare a reflex perhaps of his status as the most literary of spy novelists whose works are sometimes thought of with a kind of brides head OBO playing regretfully somewhere in the background instead morel’s gives us something gutsier and less English we get rage Restless curiosity agonized self-reproach and whole Landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia the performances from Ralph fien and Rachel wise are excellent perhaps the very best of their careers and there is First Rate support particularly from Bill NY as the Mephisto and Mandarin from the foreign office The Constant Gardener is a love story told in retrospect fien is Justin a shy introspective Junior Diplomat Who falls in love with Tess Weiss a beautiful and fiery political activist they marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya Justin is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact-f finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker he will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess’s murder which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV positive Africans going up to the top of the British establishment more importantly perhaps even than this just uncovers painful secrets about his marriage involving a messy and very human renegotiation of Friendship with his colleague Sandy another very good performance from Danny Houston though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent these disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before as someone with humanity and idealism that though flawed exceeded his own posum asly he falls in love with her again his grief is transformed and charged with a Visionary insight into Tess’s real life the film is about betrayal personal and political but it provides A New Perspective On Em forer’s remark about whether to betray one’s friend or one’s country this is about being betrayed by one’s country and one’s friend the two types of treason are conflated and Justin finds himself in the midst of a greenan Purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back back the spiritual Agony is compounded when Justin’s detective work takes him to Germany and then to London where Bill ny’s Sinister mandrin takes him to luncheon at his St james’ Club the Brazilian merels is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological Detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals there is a terrific pulse of energy in this film a voltage which drives it over 2 hours it is not just an intricate despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain’s interests and waning foreign Prestige there is real anger here and a real sense that it is worthwhile striking back against wrongdoing it’s Global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic while also pointing up Justin’s desolate loneliness The Constant Gardener is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 10 years ago the constant Garder is a 2005 drama Thriller film directed by Fernando mayores the screenplay by Jeffrey Kane is based on John L’s 2001 novel of the same name the story follows Justin Quail Ralph fien a British Diplomat in Kenya as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa Rachel Weiss an amnesty activist alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love filmed on location in Lalani and the slums of kibber 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 Caro Nigeria the DVD versions were released in the United States on 1st January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13th of 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 kundai Denny Houston Bill Nai Pete poleth weight and Donald Sumpter Costa the film was a critical and box office success and earned four Oscar nominations winning best supporting actress for wise plot Justin quail British Diplomat and Avid horticulturalist is confronted by Amnesty International activist Tessa during a lecture in London they strike up a romance and marry after she accompanies him to his posting in Kenya where she befriends Belgian Dr Arnold Bloom leading to rumors of an affair Tessa has no quals confronting corruption to the Chagrin of Justin superiors and they lose a child late in her pregnancy connecting local deaths to Trials of a new drug dipra conducted by Kenyan based company 3bs Tessa and Arnold write a damaging report on the drug she gives it to Justin’s colleague Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner who sends it to Sir Bernard pelgrin head of the Africa desk at the foreign office pelgrin responds with an incriminating letter to Sandy which Tessa persuades him to show her and she steals it before departing for Loki with Arnold Sandy informs Justin that a white woman and black driver have been killed near Lake tana and that Tessa and Arnold shared a room at lir before hiring a car Justin and Sandy identifi Tessa’s mutilated body but Arnold’s whereabouts remain unknown police confiscate Tessa’s computer and files but Justin finds her keepsake box containing a letter from Sandy declaring his love for her and asking her to return pelgrin letter and records of 3bs tests after Tessa’s burial Justin learns from his colleague G that Tessa kept Arnold’s secret that he was gay as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya pursuing the truth about his wife’s murder Justin follows the trail of her report he is briefly detained by police and confronts 3bs CEO Kenny Curtis but receives no answers returning to London Justin’s passport is confiscated he dines with pelgrin who lies that Arnold must have murdered Tessa and believes that Justin has his incriminating letter Justin meets with Tessa’s cousin and lawyer ham and they access her computer files to reveal her investigation into dipra and its manufacturer pharmaceutical conglomerate kdh which hired three bees to test the drug on unsuspecting Kenyans Justin receives a threatening note and ham provides him with a fake passport to travel to Germany where he meets Tessa’s contact Bur bget part of a pharmaceutical Watchdog group the group has been targeted and she is reluctant to speak and Justin is attacked in his hotel room and warned to stop investigating Arnold’s body is found having been tortured to death while the announcement of a safe deaa causes KD’s share price to soore returning to Kenya Justin confronts Sandy who admits that Tessa’s report was silenced to save kdh from spending Millions redeveloping the drug just is approached by Curtis who has been betrayed by kdh and brought to a mass grave of deaa test subjects Curtis points Justin to Dr ler deraa’s inventor who has fled to Sudan Tim Donahue a friend in British intelligence confirms that pelgrin had Tessa and Arnold killed unable to convince Justin to return home he gives him a gun Justin travels to confront ler who is treating remote villagers to atone for the lives AED by his drug the village is attacked by Raiders but Justin and ler Escape in a un Aid plane and ler reveals that he has pelgrin letter Tessa convinced him to record the truth about dipra but he changed his mind informing kdh that Tessa and Arnold were on route to expose the company to the UN Justin convinces the pilot to mail pelgrin letter to ham and to drop him off at Lake turana removing the book bullets from his gun his final thoughts are of Tessa before he is killed by KD’s henchmen in London at Tessa and Justin’s memorial service pelgrin lies that Justin committed suicide in the same place his wife died ham announces the reading of an epistle but instead reads pelgrin letter exposing the deaths caused by dipra and the subsequent coverup peline storms out as ham implicates the British government kdh and public complacency regarding the human cost of medicine they take for granted cast Ralph fien as Justin Quail Rachel Weiss as Tessa Abbott Quail Danny Houston as Sandy Woodrow Hubert kundai as Arnold Bloom Archie Punjabi as G Pearson Bill Nagi as Sir Bernard pelgrin Gerard maoli as Sir Kenneth Curtis Pete poleth weight as law beer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donahue Richard McCabe as Arthur Hammond AKA ham Juliet AUB as Gloria Woodrow Nick reading as Crick Christopher okinda as Doctor box office the film’s worldwide gross was 82466 670 critical response on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener has a score of 84% based on a 194 critical reviews with an average rating of 7.6 to 10 the consensus reads the Constant Gardener is a smart gripping and suspenseful Thriller with Rich performances from the leads it also has a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 39 critics audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to f scale Roger eert of the Chicago Sun Times called it one of the year’s best films USA Today noted that the films passion betrayal gorgeous cinematography social commentary Stellar performance is and clever wit puts it in a special category near Perfection however Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice criticize the film as a cannonballing mange of hack Cuts impressionistic close-ups and tropical swelter but why Justin needs to know did Tessa receive an email asking her what were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hilton Friday night does Justin know the murder of Tessa takes place right at the start of the The Constant Gardener so it is not revealing too much to mention it the movie is a progress back into her life and a journey of Discovery for Justin who discovers a woman he never really knew the flashback structure told in remembered moments passages of dialogue scenes that are interrupted and completed later is typical of John lcar whose novels resemble chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all of the others take too many moves it is a style suited to the gifts of the Brazilian director Fernando meles whose great city of God 2002 told a story that was composed of countless tributaries that all flowed together into a mighty narrative stream the fragmented style is the best way to tell this story both for the novel and the movie The Constant Gardener is not a logical exercise beginning with mystery and ending at truth but a circling around an elusive conspiracy understand who the players are and how they are willing to compromise themselves and you can Glimpse cruel outlines beneath the public relations facade as the drug companies pour AIDS drugs into Africa are they using their programs to mask the testing of other drugs no drug company does something for nothing lcar has a character observe the Constant Gardener may be the angriest story lcar has ever told certainly his elegant pros and the oblique shorthand of the dialogue shows the writer forcing himself to turn Fury into style his novel involves drug companies who test their products on the poor of the third world and are willing to accept the deaths that may occur because after all those people don’t count why not because no one is there to count them do drug companies really do this the recent verdict against the makers of voxx indicates that a jury thought Merc sold a drug it knew was dangerous facts are the bones beneath the skin of a lcar novel either he knows what he’s talking about or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to The Constant Gardener plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments what makes the film extraordinary is that it also plays as a love story and as an examination of the Mysteries of the heart the performances need to be very good to carry us through sequences in which nobody good or evil seem seems very sure of the total picture Ralph fien plays Justin as a bureaucrat who seems detached from issues he’s the opposite of Tessa as he tries to get to the bottom of her death he sifts through his discoveries like an accountant unwilling to go home for the day until the books are balanced one way of looking at Tessa’s death is that she was a hotthead who had an affair with a handsome African man went where she shouldn’t have and got caught in one of those African border killings where toll collecting Soldiers with AK-47s enforce whatever they think is the law another way to look at it is to give her the benefit of the doubt to wonder what was behind the embarrassing question she asked at a press conference to ask why statistics seem to be missing if a drug study is designed to generate them as he probes through the wreckage of his wife’s life Justin encounters an array of characters who could have been airlifted in from Graham green or from other lcar novels of course Hubert konder plays Arnold Bloom the African who is not in fact Tessa’s driver but a doctor who is her colleague Danny Houston tall and courtly like his father John and like John often smiling at a private joke plays Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner on the scene Bill Nucky that actor who often seems to be frowning through a migraine is s Bernard pelgrin head of the foreign office and thus Justin and sy’s boss and Pete postwe looking as if he has been left out too long in the weather is LA beer a drug company man who works in the field at what it is dangerous to say The Constant Gardener begins with a strong angry story and peoples it with actors who let it happen to them instead of rushing ahead to check off the surprises it seems solidly grounded in its Kenyan locations like city of God it feels organically rooted like many lari stories it begins with grief and proceeds with sadness toward horror its closing scenes are as cynical about International politics and commerce as I can imagine I would like to believe they are an exaggeration but I fear they are not this is one of the year’s best films there are some films which have Oscar Contender written all the way through them like a stick of rock this version of John lear’s 2001 novel is conceived on a grand almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performances from actors who come the New Year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes like The English Patient there’s a fair bit of grand standing but this film more than carries it off its shrewd producer Simon Channing Williams had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando meles to direct and meles has brought to this conspiracy Thriller come love story the unceasing energy and attack that characterized his Sensational debut film city of God there is certainly none of the torpid Melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of lare a reflex perhaps of his status as the most literary of spy novelists whose works are sometimes thought of with a kind of brides head OBO playing regretfully somewhere in the background instead morel’s gives us something gutsier and less English we get rage Restless curiosity agonized self-reproach and whole Landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia the performances from Ralph fien and Rachel wise are excellent perhaps the very best of their careers and there is First Rate support particularly from Bill NY as the mopan Mandarin from the foreign office The Constant Gardener is a love story told in retrospect fien is just a shy introspective Junior Diplomat Who falls in love with Tess Weiss a beautiful and fiery political activist they marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya Justin is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker he will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess’s murder which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV positive Africans going up to the top of the British establishment more importantly perhaps even than this Justin uncovers painful secrets about his marriage involving a messy and very human renegotiation of Friendship with his colleague Sandy another very good performance from Danny Houston though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent these disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before as someone with humanity and idealism that though flawed exceeded his own posthumously he falls in love with her again his grief is transformed and charged with a Visionary insight into Tess’s real life the film is about betrayal personal and political but it provides A New Perspective On Em Foster’s remark about whether to betray one’s friend or one’s country this is about being betrayed by one’s country and one’s friend the two types of treason are conflated and Justin finds himself in the midst of a greenan Purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back the spiritual Agony is compounded when Justin’s detective work takes him to Germany and then to London where Bill ny’s Sinister mandrin takes him to luncheon at his St james’ Club the Brazilian merels is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological Detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals there is a terrific pulse of energy in this film a voltage which drives it over 2 hours it is not just an intricate despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain’s interests and waning foreign Prestige there is real anger here and a real sense that it is worthwhile striking back against wrongdoing its Global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic while also pointing up Justin’s desolate loneliness the constant Garder is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 10 years ago the constant Garder is a 2005 drama Thriller film directed by Fernando mayores the screenplay by Jeffrey Kane is based on John lear’s 2001 novel of the same name the story follows Justin Quail Ralph fien a British Diplomat in Kenya as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa Rachel Weiss an amnesty activist alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love filmed on location in loang galani and the slums of kibber 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 Caro Nigeria the DVD versions were released in the United States on 1st January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13th of 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 kundai Denny Houston Bill Nai Pete poleth weight and Donald Sumpter CoStar the film was a critical and box office success earned four Oscar nominations winning best supporting actress for wise plot Justin Quail a British Diplomat and Avid horticulturalist is confronted by Amnesty International activist Tessa during a lecture in London they strike up a romance and marry after she accompanies him to his posting in Kenya where she befriends Belgian Dr Arnold Bloom leading to rumors of an affair Tessa has no quals confronting corruption to the Chagrin of Justin superiors and they lose a child late in her pregnancy connecting local deaths to Trials of a new drug dipra conducted by Kenyan based company 3bs Tessa and Arnold write a damaging report on the drug she gives it to Justin’s colleague Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner who sends it to Sir Bernard pelgrin head of the Africa desk at the foreign office pelgrin responds with an incriminating letter to Sandy which Tessa persuades him to show her and she feels it before departing for Loki with Arnold Sandy informs Justin that a white woman and black driver have been killed near Lake takana and that Tessa and Arnold shared a room at lwir before hiring a car Justin and Sandy identify Tessa’s mutilated body but Arnold’s whereabouts remain unknown police confiscate Tessa’s computer and files but Justin finds her keepsake box containing a letter from Sandy declaring his love for her and asking her to return pelgrin letter and records of 3bs tests after Tessa’s baral Justin learns from his colleague gaer that Tessa kept Arnold’s secret that he was gay as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya pursuing the truth about his wife’s murder Justin follows the trail of her report he is briefly detained by police and confronts 3 B’s CEO Kenny Curtis but receives no answers returning to London Justin’s passport is confiscated he dines with pelgrin who lies that Arnold must have murdered Tessa and believes that Justin has his incriminating letter Justin meets with Tessa’s cousin and lawyer ham and they access her computer files to reveal her investigation into dipra and its manufacturer pharmaceutical conglomerate kdh which hired three bees to test the drug on unsuspecting kenyons Justin receives a thre threatening note and ham provides him with a fake passport to travel to Germany where he meets Tessa’s contact Berget part of a pharmaceutical Watchdog group the group has been targeted and she is reluctant to speak and Justin is attacked in his hotel room and warned to stop investigating Arnold’s body is found having been tortured to death while the announcement of a safe deaa causes kdh his share price to S returning to Kenya Justin confronts Sandy who admits that ‘s report was silenced to save kdh from spending Millions redeveloping the drug Justin is approached by Curtis who has been betrayed by kdh and brought to a mass grave of deaa test subjects Curtis points Justin to Dr ler deraa’s inventor who was fled to Sudan Tim donu a friend in British intelligence confirms that pelgrin had Tessa and Arnold killed unable to convince Justin to return home he gives him a gun Justin travels to confront ler who is treating remote villagers to atone for the lives claimed by his drug the village is attacked by Raiders but Justin and lir Escape in a un Aid plane and ler reveals that he has pelgrin letter Tessa convinced him to record the truth about di praxa but he changed his mind informing kdh that Tessa and Arnold were on route to expose the company to the UN Justin convinces the pilot to mail pelgrin letter to ham and to drop him off at Lake turana removing the bullets from his gun his final thoughts are of Tessa before he is killed by KD’s henchmen in London at Tessa and Justin’s memorial service pelgrin lies that Justin committed suicide in the same place his wife died ham announces the reading of an epistle but instead reads pelgrin letter exposing the deaths caused by dipra and the subsequent coverup peline storms out as ham implicates the British government kdh and public complacency regarding the human cost of medicine they take for granted cast Ralph fien as Justin Quail Rachel Weiss as Tessa Abbott Quail Danny Houston as Sandy Woodrow Hubert kundai as Arnold Bloom Archie Punjabi as G Pearson Bill Nagi as Sir Bernard pelgrin Gerard molia sir Kenneth Curtis Pete poleth weight as L beer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donahue Richard McCabe as Arthur Hammond AKA ham Juliet Aubry as Gloria Woodrow Nick reading as Crick Christopher okinda as Doctor box office the film’s worldwide gross was 82466 670 critical response on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener has a score of 84% based on a 194 critical reviews with an average rating of 7.6 to1 the consensus reads the Constant Gardener is a smart gripping and suspenseful Thriller with Rich performances from the leads it also has a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 39 critics audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of B on an A plus to f scale Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times called it one of the year’s best films 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 mange of hack Cuts impressionistic close-ups and tropical swelter but why Justin needs to know did Tessa receive an email asking her what were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hill Hilton Friday night does Justin know the murder of Tessa takes place right at the start of the Constant Gardener so it is not revealing too much to mention it the movie is a progress back into her life and a journey of Discovery for Justin who discovers a woman he never really knew the flashback structure told in remembered moments passages of dialogue scenes that are interrupted and completed later is typical of John lar whose novels resemble chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all of the others take too many moves it is a style suited to the gifts of the Brazilian director Fernando meles whose great city of God 2002 told a story that was composed of countless tributaries that all float together into a mighty narrative stream the fragmented style is the best way to tell this story both for the novel and the movie The Constant Gardener is not a logical exercise beginning with mystery and ending at truth but a circling around an elusive conspiracy understand who the players are and how they are willing to compromise themselves and you can Glimpse cruel outlines beneath the public relations facad as the drug companies pour AIDS drugs into Africa are they using their programs to mask the testing of other drugs no drug company does something for nothing lcar has a character observe the Constant Gardener may be the angriest story lcar has ever told certainly his elegant pros and the oblique Shand of the dialogue shows the writer forcing himself to turn Fury into style his novel involves drug companies who test their products on the poor of the third world and are willing to accept the deaths that may occur because after all those people don’t count why not because no one is there to count them do drug companies really do this the recent verdict against the makers of voxx indicates that a jury thought Merc sold a drug it knew was dangerous facts are the bones beneath the skin of a lar novel either he knows what he’s talking about or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to The Constant Gardener plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments what makes the film extraordinary is that it also plays as a love story and as an examination of the Mysteries of the heart the performances need to be very good to carry us through sequences in which nobody good or evil seems very sure of the total picture Ralph fien plays Justin as a bureaucrat who seems detached from issues he’s the opposite of Tessa as he tries to get to the bottom of her death he sifts through his discoveries like an accountant unwilling to go home for the day until the books are balanced one way of looking at Tessa’s death is is that she was a hotthead who had an affair with a handsome African man went where she shouldn’t have and got caught in one of those African border killings where toll collecting Soldiers with AK-47s enforce whatever they think is the law another way to look at it is to give her the benefit of the doubt to wonder what was behind the embarrassing questions she asked at a press conference to ask why statistics seem to be missing if a drug study is designed to generate them as he probes through the wreckage of his wife’s life Justin encounters an array of characters who could have been airlifted in from Graham green or from other lcar novels of course Hubert ker plays Arnold Bloom the African who is not in fact Tessa’s driver but a doctor who is her colleague Danny Houston tall and courtly like his father John and like John often smiling at a private joke plays Sandy Woodrow the British High Commissioner on the scene Bill Nucky that actor who often seems to be frowning through a migraine is s Bernard pelgrin head of the foreign office and thus Justin and sy’s boss and Pete postlethwait looking as if he has been left out too long in the weather is LA beer a drug company man who works in the field at what it is dangerous to say The Constant Gardener begins with a strong angry story and peoples it with actors who let it happen to them instead of rushing ahead to check off the surprises it seems solidly grounded in its Kenyan locations like city of god it feels organically rooted like many lucari stories it begins with grief and proceeds with sadness toward horror its closing scenes are as cynical about International politics and commerce as I can imagine I would like to believe they are an exaggeration but I fear they are not this is one of the year’s best films there are some films which have Oscar contend are written all the way through them like a stick of rock this version of John lear’s 2001 novel is conceived on a grand almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performances from actors who come the New Year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes like The English Patient there’s a fair bit of grand standing but this film more than carries it off its shrewd producer Simon Channing Williams had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando meles to direct and meles has brought to this conspiracy Thriller come love story the unceasing energy and attack that characterized his Sensational debut film city of God there is certainly none of the torpid Melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of lare a reflex perhaps of his status as the most literary of spy novelists whose works are sometimes thought of with with a kind of brides head OBO playing regretfully somewhere in the background instead morel’s gives us something gutsier and less English we get rage Restless curiosity agonized self-reproach and whole Landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia the performances from Ralph fen’s and Rachel wise are excellent perhaps the very best of their careers and there is First Rate support particularly from Bill Nye as the mephistophelean Mandarin from the foreign office The Constant Gardener is a love story told in retrospect fien is Justin a shy introspective Junior Diplomat Who falls in love with Tess Weiss a beautiful and fiery political activist they marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya Justin is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact-f finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker he will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess’s murder which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV positive Africans going up to the top of the British establishment more importantly perhaps even than this Justin uncovers painful secrets about his marriage involving a messy and very human renegotiation of Friendship with his colleague Sandy another very good performance from Danny Houston though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent these disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before as someone with humanity and idealism that though flawed exceeded his own postumus he falls in love with her again his grief is transformed and charged with a Visionary insight into Tess’s real life the film is about betrayal personal and political but it provides A New Perspective On Em forer’s remark about whether to betray one’s friend or one’s country this is about being betrayed betrayed by one’s country and one’s friend the two types of treason are conflated and Justin finds himself in the midst of a greenan Purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back the spiritual Agony is compounded when Justin’s detective work takes him to Germany and then to London where Bill ny’s Sinister mandrin takes him to luncheon at his St james’ Club the Brazilian merel is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological Detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals there is a terrific pulse of energy in this film a voltage which drives it over 2 hours it is not just an intricate despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain’s interests and waning foreign Prestige there is real anger here and a real sense that it is worthwhile striking back against wrongdoing its Global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic while also pointing up Justin’s desolate loneliness The Constant Gardener is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 10 years ago
The Constant Gardener (2005) Full Movie | Ralph Fiennes & Rachel Weisz | Review & Facts
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The Constant Gardener is a 2005 drama thriller film 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.