Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer"

Polanski has woven a political thriller fantasy around Tony and Cherie Blair and they bizarrely supine relationship that the UK under Blair's leadership seemed to have with the U.S., and especially George W. Bush, in foreign affairs.  To say too much more would give away the plot, so what I will say is that Ewan McGregor is stunning as the central character, who is basically on screen for the entire film without a stop but you never get tired of him.  The entire story is told from his perspective, and it is an increasingly paranoid perspective.  All the co-stars and supporting players are superb, but this film is really all about McGregor and, of course, Polanski.

Which brings me to my own conspiracy theory.  Why did Polanski's case suddenly go "live" again while he was editing this film?  Why, after so many decades, did U.S. officials suddenly try to snatch him in Europe and have him extradited to the U.S. to be sentenced after so many years on an ancient charge?  (OK, we can have serious debates about the nature of his offense, but that's not the purpose of this post.) Could it be that folks at The Company got wind of the theories Polanski was floating in this film, found them too "close to the bone," and tried to prevent its release through the expedient of detaining the filmmaker and making it impossible for him to finish the film?  Enough said on that front....  But the plot of the film itself leads one to speculate.

I found it totally gripping.  My attention never wandered.  The intensity mounted and mounted and never let up.  Compulsively watchable!