The Constant Gardener shows us what happens when a film’s moral argument outweighs its story. The film has a serious thesis it wants to express concerning the plight of Africans and the responsibility of pharmaceutical companies that supply them with drugs. There’s nothing wrong with starting with a theme and creating a story from that. But it had better be a good story.
In The Constant Gardener the writer chooses the thriller and love story on which to hang the thematic line. A diplomat’s wife is killed and he sets out to find out who did it and why. This brings him into considerable danger of being killed himself. He learns that his wife had discovered truly horrible crimes committed by drug companies in Africa.
To make this work, the writer has two big requirements. First he has to show that this was a great love between husband and wife, because the husband must risk his own death to finish the job his wife started. Second, the writer must come up with a detective plot that is full of reveals and surprises, or else the audience is going to see early on that this story is just an excuse to attack international drug companies in Africa.
Unfortunately the writer fails in both of these requirements. The husband and wife meet at a lecture, go to bed together in the next scene, and then head off to Africa as husband and wife. The wife doesn’t trust her husband enough to tell him about the secret investigation she is pursuing. And there is little evidence that their marriage is anything but a convenient connection between two good friends.
It’s one of the great rules of storytelling that you can’t montage love. An audience can’t intellectually know that two people love each other. They have to feel it, and that takes screen time. Without the foundation of a strong love between the two characters, the husband’s quest to uncover the injustice, in the face of almost certain death, is emotionally unbelievable. And the quest driving three quarters of the movie just falls apart.
The writer also fails to come up with a detective plot to justify the length of the story. Detective stories work by withholding information from the audience. If that information, in the form of reveals, is not surprising or shocking, the story feels like a giant stall. The wheels of the mechanism show and the audience gets impatient and bored. If the theme is top-heavy to boot, the lack of storytelling ability is fatal.
Perhaps the couple in the movie were not in love before the trip to Africa and part of their falling in love were the events (trials) they go through after they arrive in Africa which sadly lead to the death first of one and later the other: Something here about Romeo and Juliet. Anyway I wonder if the purpose of Mr. Quayle’s transformation over the course of the story is the way he accedes to everything including taking Tessa to Africa as his wife even though they are not (at least not yet) in love. The he reaps the consequence of this when he can sense that she is hiding stuff from him and the ensuing agony borne more out of hurt pride. What makes him take on the work she started? He needed to satisfy his esteem and confirm if indeed Tessa was having an affair with Arnold. That leads him to the truth about her work and eventually helps him to understand her quest which further leads him to love her. I agree though about the detective genre structure which fails because of weak reveals and the mostly convenient way they occur. Also, the opponent really doesn’t feature in striking blows at every turn against the taciturn diplomat in discouraging him from continuing to dig for the truth – except of course the hotel scene – and the reluctance of some key people to speak about the conspiracy. Even though enough people spill their guts at any rate. Good review Mr. Truby but I think you’re a little too hard on the story. Thank you.
I saw this movie long before I knew anything about screenwriting and I think it is a great movie. Sometimes you have to let go of all theoretics and just go along with the story being told and figure out your own truth about it. I was really touched by it. But maybe that is because I’m from Holland and not that enslaved nor conditioned by Hollywood standards. When you open your mind, a whole new world of great movies emerge, like Lola rennt, Broken Circle Breakdown and un Prophete.
Your points are very valid Mr. Truby. But then, why is it a good movie? Is it one of those instances where production and talent win? Or does the premise alone trump the structural flaws? Or is there something in the content of the script that managed to touch people? There is a myth component in there, does it?
About the revelations, IMHO, it wasn’t as much about surprising the audience with information we didn’t have. It was about showing us the nonchalant attitudes of the chain of people innocently complicit in the murder of the diplomat’s wife and her friend.
“I told them… but I didn’t know they were gonna…”. We kept hearing this over and over.
As I write this, I believe I came to a revelation of my own. This script was not an moral argument about what the pharmaceuticals were doing in Africa. Not really. The theme line was expressed at the diplomat’s funeral by the wife’s brother: “No, there are no murders in Africa, only regrettable deaths. And from those deaths we derive the benefits of civilization. Benefits we can afford so easily, because those lives were bought so cheaply.”
Notice the punch word: cheaply.
No, this is not a critique of pharmaceuticals. This is a critique of modern day economic imperialism. The writer has only chosen to use a romance / triller / detective plot as a pretext to keep our eyes opened long enough to show what he really wanted us to see.