Release Year: 2005 Rating: R Duration: 129 minutes Director: Fernando Meirelles Producer: Gail Egan, Robert Jones, Donald K. Ranvaud Distributor: Focus Features
synopsis
When a British diplomat's wife -- a socially-conscious lawyer -- turns up dead in Kenya, he sets out to find the truth surrounding her murder. In the process, he finds out that his wife had been compiling data against a multinational drug company that uses helpless Africans as guinea pigs to test a tuberculosis remedy with unfortunately fatal side effects. Therefore those who may have had the most reason to silence her are closer to home than he ever imagined.
cast
Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle
quote
Sir Bernard Pellegrin: Some very nasty things can be found under rocks, especially in foreign gardens.
As he did in his wildly overrated CITY OF GOD (CIDADE DE DEUS), OSCAR nominee Fernando Meirelles once again creates a film that is a triumph of style over storytelling. This film version of John Le Carré's THE CONSTANT GARDENER fashions a simplistic world in which the United Nations is the source of all good while big businesses and governments are the source of all evil. (Before you go protesting the evil as shown in the film, you might want to check the reality of the situation, which is massive aid from both the United States and the British government into Africa in order to aggressively attack the AIDS epidemic there and big pharmaceutical firms providing their AIDS drugs below cost.)
