Home helping my parents with the apple harvest this weekend, and when I’m home, I always try to make my family watch a good movie. This weekend, we saw “The Constant Gardner” form 2005. Not too hard talking them into seeing it, as my mother’s a fan of John le Carré, and as there wasn’t anything special on the telly.

I saw this film at the cinema last winter, and for the first time (at least that I can remember) I found a film to be better when watching it on TV than it was in the cinema. Usually, the enlarged dimensions and the more total experience of theatres make the movie seem more intense, which usually makes the film more enjoyable. Or easier to be sucked into, if you will. Which was, admittedly, the case with this film, too. However, this was one of those rare films that managed to draw me in even though I was sitting in a well lit room, with three talking people around me, and lots of toilet breaks. :P

The plot and the theme is marvellous, as well it should be, considering that it’s based on a novel written by one of the best writers of thrillers in the last 30 years. The acting is stunning, especially the two main characters are played extraordinarily well by Rahel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes. Their intense acting, the thrilling plot, the almost perfectly presented political criticism that constitutes the theme — all of this and more help add awesome suspense to a movie which, relatively speaking, is almost devoid of action. (At least the kinds of action that include fights, car chases, shoot-outs, ans so on.)

A truly splendid movie, which I’ll give a 9.0/10. It could easily have gotten at least half a point more, but some cheesy, clichéed lines as well as a certain degree of predictability forces me to rate it thus.