Hmm. So this Adam Lang character seems to share more than a little with Roman Polanski himself -- past crimes resurfacing, lawyers, trials and exile. Someone prone to reading into things (someone like myself for example) would start rummaging for clues. Indeed, I'm encouraged to do so by the film itself. Its truth is buried in code in Lang's ghosted memoirs. Is the audience's relationship to Polanski mirrored in Ewan McGregor's relationship to Lang? Both scrabbling to figure out the enigma they are faced with?
Polanski is not kind to Lang. And yet the film's resolution shifts the responsibility for his crimes to his wife. All very curious. Impossible to conjecture what Polanski may have encoded into his film/memoir, if anything. Maybe he's just playing games. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
But it's not like there's much else to do here. Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams put in sterling work as Tony and Cherie doppelgangers. But Ewan McGregor seemed pretty half-hearted. Perhaps the demands of the London accent was putting him down. Some of his lines were delivered abysmally. Kim Cattrall's accent was even worse, although she managed to overcome that limitation and put in a very convincing performance. Impressive achievement.
And satire? Please! The Prime Minister an agent of the CIA? Could you hit me over the head with that a little more? The whole thing is very silly, and much too long for how silly it was. Never boring, sure. This is Polanski. But not any kind of return to form either.
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