The Ghost Writer
US film poster
Directed by	Roman Polanski
Screenplay by	Robert Harris Roman Polanski
Based on	The Ghost by Robert Harris
Produced by	Roman Polanski Robert Benmussa Alain Sarde
Starring	Ewan McGregor Pierce Brosnan Kim Cattrall Olivia Williams Tom Wilkinson Timothy Hutton Jon Bernthal David Rintoul Robert Pugh Eli Wallach
Cinematography	Paweł Edelman
Edited by	Hervé de Luze
Music by	Alexandre Desplat
Distributed by	Optimum Releasing (United Kingdom) Pathé Distribution (France and Switzerland)[1] Kinowelt Filmverleih (Germany)[2]
Release dates	12 February 2010 (2010-02-12) (Berlin Film Festival) 18 February 2010 (2010-02-18) (Germany) 3 March 2010 (2010-03-03) (France) 16 April 2010 (2010-04-16) (United Kingdom)
Running time	128 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom France Germany
Language	English
Budget	€30.8 million[3]
Box office	$60.3 million[2]

The Ghost Writer (released as The Ghost in the United Kingdom and Ireland)^[4] is a 2010 neo-noir^[5] political thriller film directed by Roman Polanski. The film is an adaptation of a 2007 Robert Harris novel, The Ghost, with the screenplay written by Polanski and Harris. It stars Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall and Olivia Williams.

The film was a critical and commercial success and won numerous cinematic awards including Best Director for Polanski at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival and also at the 23rd European Film Awards in 2010.^[6]

A British ghostwriter is hired by London-based publishing firm Rhinehart, Inc. to complete the autobiography of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang due to the Ghost's predecessor and Lang's aide, Mike McAra, having recently died in a supposed drowning accident, with Lang's Washington lawyer giving him a manuscript which two thugs later assault and rob him for. The Ghost travels to Old Haven on Martha's Vineyard, where Lang and his wife Ruth are staying at a complex with Lang's personal assistant, Amelia, with anti-war protestors demonstrating with a bereaved father ranting that his son died "in one of Lang's illegal wars." Later in the evening, when the Ghost is at the hotel bar, the bereaved father inquires of Lang's whereabouts with the Ghost coldly feigning ignorance.

Former British Foreign Secretary Richard Rycart accuses Lang of authorizing the extraordinary rendition of suspected terrorists. Lang faces prosecution by the International Criminal Court unless he stays in the United States. While Lang is in Washington, D.C., the Ghost then inadvertently finds a hidden envelope containing photographs and a phone number in McAra's former room, and photos that reveal Lang met Ruth long before Cambridge and when he calls the number, meets Rycart.

The Ghost meets a longtime resident who reveals that it’s impossible for ocean currents to deposit a body on a beach, and that he was assaulted on the night before. Ruth reveals to the Ghost that Lang and McAra argued the night before the latter's death, and they have a one-night stand.

The Ghost takes McAra's car with the intent of returning to his hotel, but follows the pre-programmed directions on the car's sat nav instead. The car takes the Ghost to the Belmont home of Professor Paul Emmett, who denies anything more than a cursory acquaintance with Lang, despite several pictures of the pair together. When the Ghost tells Emmett the sat nav proves McAra visited him the night he died, Emmett denies meeting McAra and becomes evasive. When the Ghost leaves, a dark full-size vehicle chases the Ghost before he loses it.

When the Ghost has driven onto the ferry back to Martha's Vineyard, the dark vehicle reappears and the Ghost loses the two thugs by jumping off. With no one else to turn to, the Ghost asks Rycart for help. At a motel, the Ghost researches links between Emmett and a military contractor as well as the CIA. At a diner, Rycart reveals McAra gave him documents linking Lang to so-called "torture flights", in which terrorist suspects were placed on private jets to be tortured while airborne. Rycart claims that McAra found new evidence, which he wrote about in the "beginning" of the manuscript. The men cannot, however, find anything in the early pages. The Ghost discusses Emmett's relationship with Lang, while Rycart recounts how Lang's decisions as Prime Minister uniformly benefited US interests, with Amelia calling the Ghost while airborne in Lang's head-of-state jet who then has Lang express interest in completing the biography with a hesitant the Ghost agreeing at Rycart's encouragement.

The Ghost confronts Lang and accuses him of being a CIA agent recruited by Emmett who outbursts in rage. Shortly after landing at Old Haven airport, Lang is assassinated by the bereaved father from a rooftop and the assassin is promptly executed by Lang's bodyguards. The Ghost is asked to complete the book for posthumous publication.

At the book's launch party in London, the Ghost learns that Emmett, who is in attendance, was Ruth's tutor when she was at Harvard. After Amelia mentions the "beginnings" of the original manuscript the Ghost finally understands that the first word of each chapter is the clue and he discovers the message: "Lang's wife Ruth was recruited as a CIA agent by Professor Paul Emmett of Harvard University." The Ghost passes a note to Ruth revealing his discovery with her becoming confrontative, seeing the Ghost raising a glass to her but unable to confront him being thwarted by guests. The Ghost leaves the party and as he attempts to flag down a taxi in the street, a car accelerates in his direction, and a thud is heard. Witnesses react in horror, and the pages containing McAra's manuscript scatter in the wind with an officer remarking, "this one looks nasty".

The North Sea ferry MS SyltExpress that was used as the Martha's Vineyard ferry in the film

Polanski had originally teamed with Robert Harris for a film of Harris's novel Pompeii,^[7] but the project was cancelled because of the looming actors' strike that autumn.^[8][9]

Polanski and Harris then turned to Harris's recent best seller, The Ghost. They co-wrote a script and in November 2007, just after the book's release, Polanski announced filming for autumn 2008.^[10] In June 2008, Nicolas Cage, Pierce Brosnan, Tilda Swinton and Kim Cattrall were announced as the stars.^[11] Production was then postponed by a number of months, with Ewan McGregor and Olivia Williams replacing Cage and Swinton, respectively, as a result.

The film finally began production in February 2009 in Germany, at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. Germany stood in for London and Martha's Vineyard due to Polanski's inability to travel to those places, as Polanski had fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. The majority of exteriors, set on Martha's Vineyard, were shot on the island of Sylt in the North Sea, and on the ferry MS SyltExpress. The harbor exterior were shot on both the German island of Sylt, and the Danish island of Rømø. The exterior set of the house where much of the film takes place, however, was built on the island of Usedom, in the Baltic Sea. Exteriors and interiors set at a publishing house in London were shot at Charlottenstrasse 47 in downtown Berlin (Mitte), while Strausberg Airport near Berlin stood in for the Vineyard airport.^[12] A few brief exterior shots for driving scenes were shot by a second unit in Massachusetts, without Polanski or the actors.^[13]

On his way to the Zurich Film Festival, Polanski was arrested by Swiss police in September 2009 at the request of the US and held for extradition. Due to Polanski's arrest, post-production was briefly put on hold, but he resumed and completed work from house arrest at his Swiss villa. He was unable to participate in the film's world premiere at the Berlinale festival on 12 February 2010.^[14]

Pierce Brosnan plays the character of Adam Lang, who has echoes of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The character is linked to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the war on terror and the special relationship with the United States. The author of the book on which the film is based has said he was inspired at least in part by anger toward Blair's policies, and called for him to face war crimes trials.^[15]

Robert Pugh, who portrayed the former British Foreign Secretary, Richard Rycart, and Mo Asumang, who played the US Secretary of State, both physically resemble their real-life counterparts, Robin Cook and Condoleezza Rice. Like the fictional Rycart, Cook had foreign policy differences with the British Prime Minister. The old man living on Martha's Vineyard is a reference to Robert McNamara.^[16]

The film premièred at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival on 12 February 2010,^[17] and was widely released throughout much of Europe during the following four weeks. It went on general release in the US on 19 March 2010 and in the UK on 16 April 2010.^[18]

For the US theatrical release, the dialogue was censored and re-dubbed with tamer language in order to meet the Motion Picture Association's qualifications for a PG-13 rating.^[19] The censored PG-13 version was later used for the US DVD and Blu-ray releases while the uncensored version was retained for most international DVD and Blu-ray releases.^[20]

The film achieved only modest success, grossing $60.3 million^[2] against a budget of $45 million.^[2]

The film has received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 84% of critics gave positive reviews based on a sample of 210 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10.^[21] The website's critics consensus reads, "While it may lack the revelatory punch of Polanski's finest films, Ghost Writer benefits from stylish direction, a tense screenplay, and a strong central performance from Ewan McGregor."^[21] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film an average rating of 77% based on 35 reviews.^[22] At the end of the year, the film placed at #4 in both Film Comment and The Village Voice's annual critics' polls.^[23][24]

Critic Andrew Sarris wrote that the film "constitutes a miracle of artistic and psychological resilience."^[25] Roger Ebert gave the film a full four stars and declared it was "the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller."^[26] Jim Hoberman of The Village Voice placed the film at #3 on his year-end list and wrote that "The Pianist had its moments, but Polanski hasn't made a movie so sustained in the decades since The Tenant or even 1966's Cul de Sac."^[27] Jonathan Rosenbaum would later write that "The Ghost Writer is easily Polanski's best film since Bitter Moon, and certainly his most masterful."^[28] Political analyst William Bradley dubbed it "one of the best films I've seen in recent years" in a review for The Huffington Post that dealt with the film's artistic and political dimensions.^[29] The Guardian said "Roman Polanski's deft take on Robert Harris's political thriller is the director's most purely enjoyable film for years."^[30]

However, John Rentoul from the UK's liberal The Independent, who describes himself as an "ultra Blairite with a slavish admiration for Tony", and John Rosenthal, from the conservative Pajamas Media, both denounced the film because it was made with financial support from the German government. Rentoul also criticized Polanski, describing the film as "propaganda" and a "Blair hating movie".^[31]

Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York named The Ghost Writer the second-best film of 2010, describing it as "what an expertly executed thriller is supposed to be."^[32]

The movie has won numerous awards, particularly for Roman Polanski as director, Ewan McGregor in the lead role, and Olivia Williams as Ruth Lang.

• Film à clef
• The Ghost Writer (soundtrack)
• 2010 in film
• List of British films of 2010
• List of films set in New England
• List of fictional prime ministers of the United Kingdom
• Lists of thriller films
• London in film
• Roman de Gare (France, 2006), by Claude Lelouch (who appears as Hervé Picard), also about a ghost writer.

• Sebastian Stoppe: Merging of Realities, The 'Non'-America in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer. In: Medienobservationen 27 (2023), pp. 1–13, doi: 10.25969/mediarep/20024 (with video essay: doi: 10.25969/mediarep/19717).

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• The Ghost Writer at Box Office Mojo
• The Ghost Writer at IMDb
• The Ghost Writer at Metacritic
• The Ghost Writer at Rotten Tomatoes