The Ghost Writer, trailer

THR: Roman Polanski is a filmmaker who could envelop an old lady’s stroll along a boulevard with a sense of anxiety and dread, so it’s a little odd that he hasn’t made more thrillers in his career. “The Ghost Writer,” an out-and-out thriller with international politics and war crimes as its background, gives him a springboard to take a deep dive into all the moody atmosphere, breathtaking betrayals, words loaded in double meanings and heart-stopping threats that make the genre so cinematic…

[Ewan] McGregor hits all the right notes as a man with a conscience and sense of professional pride who is in way over his head. He’s smart but not too smart and doesn’t always make the right moves. [Pierce] Brosnan gets the politician’s arrogance perfectly as well as the duplicity lurking so close under the surface. [Olivia] Williams nearly steals the show as the wily, controlling wife that senses her control is at last slipping.

Alexandre Desplat’s music prowls around underneath the scenes, channeling Bernard Herrmann’s music for Hitchcock, while Pawel Edelman’s cinematography emphasizes cool colors and a barren seaside landscape.