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Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Have you ever seen the news or read the paper about some company that had been caught doing wrong. Like giving test drugs to people to find results and then it coming to light. We hear about it every few years. We think a company has done the right and honorable thing only for it to treat a third-world country like shit and as their guinea pig lab. Some people get mad when there is a congressional hearing and lots of bullshit talk only for the CEO to be dismissed; maybe a bill or law is introduced and voted in. After a few months, everything is forgotten, and life moves on. Have you ever wondered how that information comes to the public? Maybe a pissed-off employee or the company was doing some major shady shit where they were killing people. Who knows, but all bad things seem to come to the light. The Constant Gardener is a film where one man’s pursuit to find out why his wife was killed soon turns into a truth about the evil deeds of a company.
In Northern Kenya, British diplomat Justin Quayle (Fiennes) wishes his wife, activist Tessa Quayle (Weisz), goodbye, and she boards a plane and states she will be home in a few days. Justin’s life changes as he is informed that his wife was brutally murdered. All evidence points towards Tessa’s companion, a doctor, who fled the scene in a crime of passion. Members of the British High Commission in Nairobi believe that Justin will drop any pursuit of the truth as he is known for being mild-mannered and doing things by the book. Realizing that his wife was murdered and seeing the cover-up, Justin goes on a pursuit to find the truth behind his wife’s death. As Justin starts uncovering the truth behind his wife’s mother, revelations of infidelities and a harmful drug to the world come to light. Justin soon learns that his life is more in danger with each trip he takes and each person he asks. He soon realizes that he might have to sacrifice his life for the truth to come out.
I can’t speak for others, but I was wholly invested in this film and story. I thought it would be some type of lovey-dovey story about gardening. To put it another way, I thought it would be about a man who does gardening and falls in love with a wealthy woman whose family is against it. Nope, I got a political drama where a diplomat tries to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and all the dirty dealing that went on when trying to find the secret.
The film’s story is about love and the relationship between the main characters, but also trying to find the truth. The film presents this in two ways. At the film’s start, we see Tessa saying goodbye to Justin as she boards a plane. She lets him know she will be back in a couple of days. Life seems grand until Justin receives a call saying his wife is dead and for him to identify the body. When he goes, her body is straight up burnt to a crisp. This is where the story diverges.
Throughout the film, we are presented with a series of flashbacks. The flashback tells how Tessa and Justin met and fell in love. Working as a diplomat, Justin is confronted by Tessa as he is lecturing. From there, they strike up a romance, fall in love, and get married. It seems like a really quick turnaround, and she accompanies him to Kenya. It seems all whirlwind. Justin and Tessa seem happy throughout the flashbacks, but her mind is on other places. When she gets pregnant, she becomes snappy as Justin uses some type of weed killer. You think she is upset about that, but in reality, she has information about the company and doesn’t know what to do about it. Also, Sandy is a punk-ass, conniving person. He is Justin’s best friend and married but is deeply in love with Tessa. We find out that he is one of the ones responsible as he tries to stop Justin and cover up his tracks. Dude wrote so many love letters that you think he was sleeping with Tessa, and he even kissed her.
The movie returns to the present with Justin morning and starts uncovering the truth. Some people try to convince him that Tessa and Belgian doctor Arnold Bluhm were having an affair. Justin soon realizes this was a cover-up as Dr. Bluhm was gay and illegal in Kenya. As the story progresses, we get flashbacks showing what Tessa was really doing at specific times. For example, Justin finds an email from Tessa complaining about the health and testing in Kenya; in a flashback, we see that Tessa is fighting for human rights and investigating a drug company that has been doing human testing in Kenya. The company is covering it up and killing people who dig too deep.
That is the story of this thriller. The more Justin digs, the more he discovers that the pharmaceutical company is doing everything possible to keep Kenya on a specific drug. This is shown when Justin asks about a drug, and the woman is turned away. He is either escorted or chased away when he tries to help. The scene where the village is attacked and he tries to get the little girl out is saddening. The pilot won’t let him because he has to do what is best for everyone. Justin also meets the company’s CEO, who threatens him and tells him to stop what he is doing. Bill Nighy has a way of playing a sadistic and thrilling villain. Ultimately, he gets his because Justin’s last note buries him and the company.
This film is propelled by the acting. The first one that must be given credit is Rachel Weisz as Tessa Abbott-Quayle. Weisz won the Best Supporting Actress award at the Oscars and was a spitfire in this role. When she is first introduced in a flashback, she lets Justin have it. Even though people walked out of her talk, she still went in. Weisz showed Tessa as someone who was deeply in love and committed to her purpose. Weisz showed how much Tessa really cared for the people in Kenya. No scene was telling when she lost her child in a miscarriage. At the clinic, she breastfed a baby whose mother had passed away.
Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle was equally good and should’ve been nominated for an Oscar. I don’t know the other nominees, but he did an excellent job as Justin. He showed a man who was deeply broken over his wife’s death and completely committed to discovering the truth about what happened. You could see Justin’s confusion and pain as he went down the path that you soon realized would end up his ultimate fate of death.
The Constant Gardener is one of those thrillers you will either like or hate. You might even go meh. The alternating of the present and flashbacks was a nice way of telling the story and filling in the gaps. You get a semi-love story intertwined with a political thriller where a drug company is doing human testing on people in Kenya. Why you have to test on poor, black people? Weisz and Fiennes are excellent in their respective roles. Weisz, particularly as she brought it in this film with her passion, intensity, and beauty. Sometimes, the truth about a new drug is buried deep in secrets. Watch this film when you want to watch a thriller.
