The Last Movie I Saw

The Ghost Writer is the new Roman Polanski movie, maybe the last for awhile or even ever (if you don't know why, you're probably better off). It's very entertaining in a Hitchcockian sense, by which I mean it requires an extraordinary suspension of disbelief for a movie that purports to be about real people in the real world (as opposed to some sci-fi or fantasy concoction). To be honest, I've generally found Alfred Hitchcock's films to be rather silly, and they only work if you're willing to come to them with a high level of credulity, which they don't always earn (from my perspective, and I know I'm in a minority here). There are points in Polanski's film where I could feel my eyes rolling below my brow, but to be fair they were few and far between. The cast-- Ewan MacGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, and a truly great Tom Wilkinson-- is really good at establishing an air of tension and suspense (it was also a special treat to see Eli Wallach in a small role), and the plot has enough of a connection to real historical events to create at least an illusion of relevance, so overall it was an agreeable way to spend a couple hours. Polanski of course long ago established that he can generate suspense, and even besides the nod to Hitchcock, this looks and feels very much like a classic thriller from the 1970s (I'm thinking Three Days of the Condor or The Parallax View). Given that there aren't a lot of contemporary movies made in that classic style anymore, it was something of a treat in that regard; but I do wish he'd tightened up the sillier aspects of the script, and maybe he would've actually made a classic.