Constant surprise
The Constant Gardener
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy, Hubert Kounde

Rating: 4/5

TESSA Quayle (Weisz), the activist wife of a British diplomat, is found brutally murdered in northern Kenya. Her doctor friend and travelling companion is missing.

The British Embassy determines it a crime of passion, but Tessa is well known as having the well being of the Kenyans foremost in all she does, so who would have reason to kill her?

Against his better judgement, her husband Justin (Fiennes) believes what people are saying, that Tessa was promiscuous and was stirring up trouble that brought disrepute to the embassy.

But as small bits of information about Tessa’s life crop up, he becomes more suspicious about the involvement of the embassy in pharmaceutical drug testing on the Kenyan people.

Justin’s small world of carefully tending his prized garden and his work at the embassy suddenly explodes to the world scale, when he is escorted from Kenya on enforced sick leave. When his passport is taken, he turns to Tessa’s cousin for answers and gets more than he bargained for.

While the clues in Kenya pointed to Tessa’s bad behaviour, retrieval of her e-mails show she was being stalked by the pharmaceutical company while she tried to uncover the truth.

Justin wants to clear his beloved wife’s name and find out how and why she died so he can have peace.

Director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) has made a film as raw as the country in which it’s set. Its jumpy, snappy cinematography draws you into a frantic, mysterious land full of a rich energy and tinged with dread.

The scenery in Africa is beautiful. The film is also filmed in Britain and Germany to allow the suspense to deepen.

It successfully draws the audience through the information that Justin has gleaned and has you changing your opinion on who did what, and Tessa’s involvement.

The Constant Gardener will please a variety of audiences, with action, wonderful settings, intrigue and the lead shared by Fiennes and Weisz.

Don’t wait for the DVD.

– Lieutenant Simone Heyer

Sharing Christmas

THE war stopped in northern France on Christmas Eve, 1914. Personnel from both sides came out of their trenches to celebrate the night with a truce.

Joyeux Noel sees that Christmas Eve through the eyes of three officers and their willingness or reluctance to bend the rules of engagement.

It features Daniel Bruhl (Goodbye Lenin!), Diane Kruger (Troy) and Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot), and warmed hearts at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Joyeux Noel opens: December 15 in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart.