The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener - 2005 | 129 mins | Thriller, Drama | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Fernando Meirelles
Producer: Simon Channing-Williams.
Script: Jeffrey Caine. (from the novel by John Le Carré)
Cinematography: César Charlone.
Editing: Claire Simpson.
Production Design: Mark Tildesley.
Art Direction: Chris Lowe, Christian Schaefer and Denis Schnegg.
Costume Design: Odile Dicks-Mireaux.
Makeup Department: Christine Blundell, Petra Schaumann and Matthew Smith.
Sound Department: Nick Adams, Don Baker, Orin Beato, Jennie Evans, Anthony Faust,
Phillip Mark Freudenfeld, Leon Johnson, Rob Killick, Tony Lewis, Mike Prestwood Smith, Joakim Sundström, Sven Taits and Stuart Wilson.
Original Music: Alberto Iglesias.

The Cast

Ralph Fiennes - Justin Quayle
Rachel Weisz - Tessa Quayle
Hubert Koundé - Arnold Bluhm
Danny Huston - Sandy Woodrow
Daniele Harford - Miriam
Bill Nighy - Sir Bernard Pellegrin
Keith Pearson - Porter Coleridge
John Sibi-Okumu - Dr. Joshua Ngaba
Donald Sumpter - Tim Donohue
Archie Panjabi - Ghita Pearson
Nick Reding - Crick
Gerard McSorley - Sir Kenneth Curtiss
Juliet Aubrey - Gloria Woodrow
Pete Postlethwaite - Lorbeer

Plot Synopsis

Academy Award-nominated director Fernando Meirelles’s provocative The Constant Gardener was based on the best-selling John le Carré incisive novel and adapted by Jeffrey Caine. Meirelles' fast-paced and well-cast drama brings the story of intrigue, love and murder faithfully to life, meanwhile cinematographer César Charlone captures the vibrant Kenyan locations vividly in saturated red and brown hues.

In a remote area of Northern Kenya, socially-conscious activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) gathering evidence against a multinational drug company is found brutally murdered. Tessa's companion, a doctor, appears to have fled the scene and the evidence points to a crime of passion. Members of the British High Commission in Nairobi assume that Tessa's widower, their mild-mannered and unambitious colleague Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), will leave the matter to them. They could not be more wrong. Haunted by remorse and jarred by rumours of his late wife's infidelities, Quayle surprises everyone by embarking on a personal odyssey that will take him to London, Berlin and Nairobi. Using his privileged access to diplomatic secrets, he will risk his own life, stopping at nothing to uncover and expose the truth - a conspiracy more far-reaching and deadly than Quayle could ever have imagined.