The Constant Gardener

Another good film seen on tv on Saturday.

The Constant Gardener (film)

The Constant Gardener is a 2005 Academy Award-winning film based on the John le Carré novel of the same name. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God) and produced by Simon Channing-Williams (Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake), it tells the story of Justin Quayle, a man who finds his wife murdered and then seeks to uncover the reasons behind her death. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Hubert Koundé, Danny Huston and Bill Nighy.
The story was filmed in Loiyangalani and the slums of Kibera, Kenya. The situation affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust in order to provide basic education around these villages. Most critics enjoyed the cinematography and the depth of character as portrayed by the actors and writers.

Plot

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Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a civil servant working for the British High Commission in Kenya, sends off his wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) and her friend Dr. Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé), an activist who belongs to a fictional NGO named 'Médecins Dans l'Univers', to a trip to a remote location in Kenya. Later on, Justin hears from his fellow diplomat, Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston) that the dead bodies of Tessa and the truck driver she hired were found in Lake Turkana, and Arnold Bluhm is missing. Justin and Sandy go to a local morgue to identify the corpses and Justin identifies the mangled corpse of a white woman as his wife.
The movie then shows the development of the relationship between Justin and Tessa until her death. Justin first met Tessa at his lecture on diplomacy, and was fervently confronted by her on the legitimacy of Britain's participation in the Iraq War. Justin, impressed by Tessa's passionate attitude, becomes close to her and the two develop an intimate relationship. Justin is later posted to Kenya and Tessa asks him to take her along. They are wedded and go to Nairobi.
After coming to Kenya, Tessa travels to the remotest, poorest regions of Kenya in order to medically aid the local population, uncover the unethical business practices of multinational pharmaceutical firms and the corruption of Kenyan health officials. The contrast between Justin and Tessa becomes clear; Justin is a tame diplomat who is dedicated to his work only, and is most passionate about gardening in his free time. Although he sympathizes with the pain that the poor populace are going through, he is reluctant to act up to help them. Tessa, on the other hand, is a fervent activist whose priority is to right the social injustice and goes through all hardships to salvage disadvantaged people. Her dogged inquiry causes much discomfort for the Kenyans, drug company officials such as Kenneth "Kenny" Curtiss (Gerard McSorley), CEO of the powerful drug company ThreeBees and British authorities, who all have certain commercial/diplomatic interests in the pharmaceutical trade. Sandy alerts Justin that Tessa's activity might be harmful to British national interests and asks him to take action against Tessa. However Justin's feeble efforts to curb her muckraking can't stop Tessa from exploring the dark truth behind the drug trade in Africa, and this issue becomes an obstacle in their relationship. Tessa keeps the results of her research strictly to herself and only shares it with a small pool of other activists and NGO members including Arnold Bluhm, which leads Justin to suspect that the two are engaged in a romantic relationship. Their relationship is further strained when Tessa gives birth to a stillborn baby, possibly due to her fatiguing research expeditions.
After leaving the hospital, Tessa asks Justin to stop the car they're in and give a ride to Kioko, a boy they saw in the clinic (whose sister, Wanza Kilulu, has apparently succumbed to combination of HIV and an unidentified altercation). Justin rejects ("There are millions of people. They all need help."). Tessa protests and says that "these are three people that we can help", but her pleas are denied.
Even after losing her baby, Tessa keeps on with her research, uncovering evidences of serious unethical business practices of pharmaceutical firms in Africa, compiles the results of her search in a report, and sends it to Sir Bernard Pellegrin (Bill Nighy), head of the FCO Africa desk via Sandy. Tessa goes to Sandy expecting an official response to the problems she indicated in the report. However the only thing that returns from London is a personal letter from Pellegrin to Sandy. Sandy also notifies Tessa that she is causing a lot of trouble for British authorities, and therefore she is now under surveillance. Tessa uses personal feelings that Sandy has for her to acquire Pellegrin's reply on condition that she read it and return it immediately to Sandy. (However, it is later shown that she has not.) Tessa organizes her report and goes on a trip to Loki along with her companion Arnold in order to hand her report to Grace Makanga, a local activist. However, this turns out to be Tessa's last trip.
Justin returns home to find that his home has been swept by the Kenyan police and Tessa's belongings confiscated. Among the mess, he finds a letter to Tessa written by Sandy. In it, he admonishes her for breaking his trust and demands that she return what she took from him immediately. In it he also expresses his deep affection for her. After Tessa's burial, Justin senses that Dypraxa, a new drug advertised by ThreeBees has something to do with the death of Tessa and begins his own inquiry. His hunch is further reinforced when he learns that Arnold Bluhm is actually gay.
He goes to the hospital where Tessa was once treated and begins looking for the records of Wanza Kilulu, a HIV-infected teenage girl who died in the hospital from unidentified consequences. However, even though he saw the girl lying the hospital bed with his own eyes, the hospital has no record of such person. He then travels to the countryside of Kenya to find her younger brother Kioko. He finds Kioko standing in line to receive a free medical checkup/treatment by the crew from the ThreeBees cooperation. He observes Kioko's medical card, which is essential for receiving treatment from ThreeBees employees and sees an "I.C. (informed consent)" section. This implies that people who want free medical treatment must agree to a Dypraxa treatment whether they want or not, and Justin sees that people are not even being well informed that they are subject to a new drug test. While Justin is questioning a ThreeBees employee on this issue, Kenyan policemen rush to the scene and ask Justin and Kioko to come along. Justin is released shortly after British authorities (including Sandy) come to the police station, but the fate of Kioko remains unclear. Driving Justin from the police station, Sandy tells him that the authorities are viewing the missing Arnold Bluhm as the perpetrator, and that Arnold and Tessa were likely to have developed a romantic relationship.
Justin then contacts Ghita, a close friend of the Quayles. Ghita tells him about the report on ThreeBees that Tessa and Arnold had written. Ghita reveals that the two had given the report to Sandy as a compromise between public exposure and official procedures. She also tells that Tessa didn't show the report to Justin to keep him from getting involved in the dangers she faced. After learning from Ghita that Kenny Curtiss was also sent a copy of the report, Justin also visits Curtiss, only to hear his blunt denial.
Justin then goes to Britain to meet Pellegrin. During their lunch Pellegrin reaffirms that investigation authorities are convinced Arnold raped and murdered Tessa, even though Justin points out the fact that Arnold is gay and wouldn't be interested in raping a woman. Pellegrin also pleads Justin not to "go poking around under rocks". Justin brings up the subjects of ThreeBees, Kenny Curtiss and the report that Tessa wrote on Dypraxa, and infer from Pellegrin that he had written a personal letter on the report to Sandy.
He then comes across Ham, Tessa's cousin. With help from Ham, Justin discovers the "marriage of convenience" between KDH (the company that actually makes Dypraxa) and ThreeBees (which test it). He also learns of Hippo, a German medical NGO that Tessa had been regularly contacting. According to KDH's advertisement clip, Dypraxa is a tuberculosis treatment that could cure people from the expected TB epidemic, and if it is truly effective the drug would have an enormous market value. He also reads a letter from Tessa to Ham in which she expresses her morally tormented condition for using Sandy's emotion for her good, and her guilt and love towards Justin. After reading the letter Justin realizes that Tessa's love for him was true, and feels guilt for having suspected her of infidelity.
Justin then travels to Germany under an assumed identity to meet Birgit, a member of the Hippo group who had been keeping touch with Tessa. It turns out that nowhere is safe; Hippo headquarters had been broken into and several of its computers were stolen the night before Justin came. Birgit is extremely nervous, but Justin manages to get important information from her. Dypraxa is indeed effective against TB. However, the formula isn't complete yet and its side effects could be fatal. KDH was well aware of this, but instead of redesigning the formula (which would take years and millions of dollars more, and by then other competitors would come up with their own cures), KDH bribed the Kenyan government to allow the drug trials. A doctor named Lorbeer (Pete Postlethwaite) had invented the drug, but quit his job after patients treated with Dypraxa began to die, and disappeared. Upon returning to his hotel room, Justin is assaulted by two skinheads and is threatened that should his inquiry continue, he will meet the same fate as his wife's. Meanwhile in Kenya Arnold Bluhm's brutally murdered corpse has been found. It is found that he had been tortured to death the same day Tessa died. The murder case has now fallen into complete darkness.
ThreeBees's stock price has suddenly plummeted, and the once major pharmaceutical player is now on the verge of bankruptcy. Justin goes back to Kenya on a forged passport and confronts Sandy. Sandy confesses he loved Tessa and let her read what she shouldn't have; the letter from Pellegrin. He explains the reason why British government is aiding KDH with its lethal drug tests. A new KDH plant built in Wales which employs thousands could have gone to France hadn't they helped. Curtiss and ThreeBees served as an investment partner for KDH and managed the drug trials until now. He coldly admits that "We're not paid to be bleeding hearts". Also, he confesses that he was the one who notified Pellegrin that Tessa and Arnold were heading for Loki, but never expected they would be murdered.
After that, Justin encounters Curtiss, whose business is now ruined and his value exhausted. Curtiss shows him where the bodies of Wanza Kilulu and other victims of the side effects of Dypraxa have been secretly buried. The victims' official records were all erased, so they had never existed. Curtiss wants to take revenge against Pellegrin for not protecting his business, and his intention of showing Justin the mass grave is to aid his muckraking expedition. He also tells that Dr. Lorbeer, the original inventor of Dypraxa, is currently in southern Sudan.
Justin takes Ghita's car and travels to Lokichokio to find Lorbeer. As he drives, he hallucinates that he is with Tessa, and is awakened from his delusions when he become aware that he is being pursued by an SUV. The pursuer turns out to be Tim Donohue, the British intelligence official in Kenya. Tim, who is slowly dying of cancer, warns Justin that his life is in peril; assassins have been hired to kill Justin, and Tim suggests that if Justin drops his case, he will get him out of Kenya safely. Justin declines Tim's offer and goes on his way, accepting a pistol that Tim gave him.
Posing as a freelance journalist, Justin gets on a WFP plane on its way to a refugee camp in southern Sudan which supplies food, medicines and other necessities to the needy. He meets Dr. Brandt, a white aid worker who is actually Dr. Lorbeer. Justin brings up the subject of KDH trials ("African Guinea pigs"), and startled Lorbeer recognizes Justin as the husband of Tessa Quayle. Right then, nearby tribesmen raid the village, plunder the cattle and children and set fire to the huts. Amid the confusion, Justin asks why Tessa came to Lorbeer. Lorbeer explains that he became a whistleblower and provided the data for her report by testifying about the drug on tape. Although he doesn't have the tape, he still has the copy of the report and hands it to Justin. Justin and Dr. Lorbeer run to the airstrip near the village, where the aid plane is about to take off. The two are fortunately aboard, but a local child is refused from getting on board the plane, since its passengers are limited to aid workers only. Despite Justin's impassioned attempts to save the child, the pilot refuses to let the child in, saying "there are thousands of them out there. I can't make an exception for this one child." Justin fumes, echoing Tessa's earlier statement, "Yes, but this is one we can help!". Though Justin attempts to bribe the pilot, he follows protocol and refuses to carry the child; the child eventually abandons hope and runs away, and the plane takes off. Lorbeer gives Justin Pellegrin's letter, which was his "insurance policy" against Tessa releasing his recorded testimony in public. Lorbeer confesses that he reported Tessa and Arnold's location and their destination to KDH security man in Nairobi, saying he never thought they would do harm. He also notes that Justin's life could be in grave danger.
Justin asks the pilot to do him a couple of favors; first, to land him in Lake Turkana, and second, to mail an envelope to Rome. Justin lands in Lake Turkana, where his wife met her end.
The scene changes. This time, the setting is a cathedral in London some time later. A funeral for Justin Quayle is being held, and Pellegrin reads his eulogies, hinting that Justin was in a disturbed state of mind after his wife's death and killed himself. After he has finished, Ham reads his eulogy, which turns out to be Pellegrin's personal letter to Sandy. The envelope that Justin had the pilot mail Rome had apparently reached Ham. In the letter Pellegrin writes that Tessa's report could be detrimental to British interests, orders Sandy to keep an eye on Tessa, and notes that should the fact that the British government ignored the potential lethality of the drug tests be revealed, it would certainly have enormous repercussions on those involved. Ham's words after this shocking revelation underlines the message of the film:
"So who has got away with murder? Not, of course, the British government. They merely covered up, as one does, the offensive corpses. Though not literally. That was done by person or persons unknown. So who has committed murder? Not, of course, the highly respectable firm of KDH Pharmaceutical, which has enjoyed record profits this quarter… and has now licensed ZimbaMed of Harare… to continue testing Dypraxa in Africa. 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."
In the final scenes of the movie, Justin is sitting in Lake Turkana at sunset, and again hallucinates that he is with Tessa. He stares at the beautiful scenery, and feels comfortable that he fully understands Tessa and he can join her now. Although armed with Tim's pistol, he removes its magazine and throws it away. He closes his eyes as hired gunmen get out of a pickup truck and slowly approach him. A flock of startled birds then rise over the lake.