Reception
The film has received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 84% of critics gave positive reviews based on a sample of 163 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10. Its consensus notes that, "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." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film an average rating of seventy-eight percent based on twenty-eight reviews. For Andrew Sarris the film "constitutes a miracle of artistic and psychological resilience." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and declared: "This movie is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller."
Journalist/blogger William Bradley has 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.
Writing for LAS Magazine, Theon Weber gave the film a 6.8/10 rating and called it "a thriller with topical ambitions; it takes place in a jittery, bomb-fearing Britain and America, often in airports or official buildings, where the weary rituals of security screenings refuse to let the characters or the audience relax."
However, John Rentoul from the UK's 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 launched a scathing attack on Polanski describing the winner of Berlin's Silver Bear as "propaganda" and a "Blair hating movie". Still, what the critics did not explain was that although the production company, Elfte Babelsberg Film GmbH, received €3.5 million from the German state, any major film production within Germany is entitled to apply for financial assistance from the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF); the grant is not required to be repaid.
Read more about this topic: The Ghost Writer (film)
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