Meirelles again shows us he is a true artist willing to show both the shocking beauty and abject horror of the people and places that populate his films. We have the shaky hand-held camera darting through vibrant and colorful third-world locales juxtaposed with jaw-droppingly gorgeous aerial photography of Africa in all its blazing glory. To top it off, it's all delivered in the maddeningly genius Meirelles style that took critics and audiences by storm in his debut "City of God". We the audience join Fiennes on his journey, and we rediscover the love story between he and his wife that anchors the film in a poetic realism usually reserved for movies with much less on their minds. What's even more amazing is that all of the timely political discourse and subsequent thriller aspects of the film (courtesy of the source material, John Le Carre's novel) are wrapped up in a timeless romance. The politics here are engaging and bound to stir up even the most complacent viewer. Like this year's earlier word-of-mouth and hot-button issue sleeper, "Crash," you won't be able to stop talking about it after you leave the theater. This film truly rewards its audience as it works on so many levels. Director Fernando Meirelles takes the amazing style he honed with "City of God" and adds a heart with "The Constant Gardener," a big heart that bleeds a beautiful cinematic poeticism onto the screen. Her character develops and becomes even more compelling after she dies and we learn her secrets through expertly paced flashbacks. Fiennes gives his most humanistic and endearing performance ever, perhaps even topping his Oscar nominated turns in "Schindler's List" and "The English Patient." Rachel Weisz is an illuminating revelation, turning in the performance of her career. Ralph Fiennes stars as a British diplomat whose complacency is challenged when he is forced into a soul searching quest for the reasons behind the tragic death of his activist wife (Rachel Weisz) that uncovers a sinister pharmaceutical company in cahoots with British and Kenyan governments testing a new TB drug on expendable HIV+ Africans.
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