Getting Hitchcocky

It takes a director like Roman Polanski to successfully pull off a movie like “The Ghost Writer,” a political crime thriller that might not even have any crimes in it.

At 76, Polanski is back in fine form with this sharply made film, seemingly none the worse for wear for his recent legal dust-up over his appalling behavior in the ‘70s. With the skill shown in his earlier films, the uncanny ability to build tension from seemingly innocuous moments, he entices us to follow him into a world of mystery, intrigue and danger.

Ewan McGregor -- himself better than he has been in years -- stars as a ghost writer of the memoirs of celebrities (his most recent was the autobiography of a magician titled “I Came, I Sawed, I Conquered”). For a great deal of money, he is hired to finish work on the memoirs of a recent British prime minister.

Like the main character in “Rebecca,” McGregor’s character is never named. Also like “Rebecca,” he is overshadowed by the previous holder of his position, a loyal and beloved writer who drowned, whether by suicide, accident or something more sinister.

The former prime minister, effectively portrayed by Pierce Brosnan, is not Tony Blair, but he is certainly Tony Blairish. His detractors claim he was a puppet of the United States and that some of the actions he took (ordering suspected terrorists to be kidnapped and handed over to the CIA for torture) constituted crimes.

The ghost writer role is seen by Polanski and his co-writer Robert Harris as a cipher, an insignificant man subject to the whims of people more powerful than he. It is the prime minister who is more dynamic; he can be friendly and frightening at the same time, open and reserved, devious and naïve.

It is a testament to the skill of Polanski and Harris (who also wrote the original novel) that we precisely know the prime minister’s domestic situation without it ever being spelled out. He is married to the lovely and stalwart Olivia Williams, but a subtle glance or two lets us know that he has recently begun to stray with his capable assistant Kim Cattrall.

With these players in place, Polanski begins tightening the screws -- both on them and us in the audience. From the bunker-like house where the prime minister has taken up residence to the gloomy, heavy atmosphere at the beach (Germany standing in for Martha’s Vineyard), Polanski creates a mood of ominous dread, of being in circumstances neither controlled by the writer nor even understood.

It is true that Polanski comes to this tense unspooling of the story by way of Hitchcock (and a little bit of early Kubrick at the end). It is one master borrowing the technique of another -- echoes of camera angles, hints of music -- and it is marvelously effective.

From the performances (including Eli Wallach and stellar work from Tom Wilkinson in small roles) to the script to the atmospheric direction, “The Ghost Writer” comes together like a good political crime thriller should. It is wholly satisfying.