The Ghost Writer gets lost in the details

Time stretches out interminably like passages in a pontificating political memoir in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer. More and more layers of mystery are added to the plot beyond the point of actually making sense of anything. Ewan McGregor plays the ghost writer of Pierce Brosnan's Tony Blair-like ex PM's memoirs, who discovers that Brosnan's administration was more like a carpool of special interests for the CIA and Brosnan's savvy wife (Olivia Williams). Polanski admirably tries to imbue some innocuous objects with newfound creepiness, but the results serve as a reminder of how little influence a director has over how their images are received. A GPS device is a little creepy. A car ferry---no matter how foreboding the setting---is not.