Nuptial Vowels

“What movie are you going to see tonight?” our 12-year old asked as we were getting ready to leave.

“‘The Ghost Writer,’” I answered. Then added, “It’s about a ghost writer.”

“Yeah, I figured,” she said. “What is it, a horror movie?”

When I finished laughing uncontrollably I realized that judging from my life, that was a natural conclusion for Sasha to come to. What was it Carrie Fisher said? Good anecdote, bad reality?

I was very much looking forward to seeing the film, and I was not disappointed. Roman Polanski has directed a masterpiece. The plot is tight and unpredictable and the atmospherics have that spooky, Hitchcockian thing going on. I am going to be very careful not to give away any of the plot but  here’s the premise: a Tony-Blair like character, post-prime ministership, needs a ghostwriter to finish his memoirs after his first ghost ends up dead.  The new ghost finds himself in the rarified atmosphere that I know all too well: tiptoeing around the living quarters of a famous person, an outsider, whose very presence embarrasses the “author” and threatens the inner circle. Even the kitchen staff eyes you suspiciously.

Needed but not trusted, the ghost slinks around trying to do his job under really weird circumstances. It’s hard to hold onto one’s self-respect in this role. I groaned audibly when the ghost, upon learning of the p.m.’s wife’s youthful political ambitions, asks her, “Did you ever want to be a proper politician?”

Eyes ablaze she shoots back, “Did you ever want to be a proper writer?”

Ouch. I feel your pain. 

Polanski himself an outsider, shows great insight into, even empathy for both the politician and the ghost. At one point, early on, the ghost reports to the p.m.’s assistant that the former p.m., played by Pierce Brosnan, keeps calling the ghost “Man” and he takes it as a term of endearment.

“That’s what he calls people when he can’t remember their name,” she notes.  Ah, I remember the invisibility.  I know what it feels like to have someone look right through you. Erased as soon as your services are no longer needed. Much later, the ghost, not invited to the book’s launch party, accompanies the assistant as her guest. When she says she is appalled he wasn’t invited, he explains, “It would be like having the mistress attend the wedding.”

The actor who plays the Ghost, Ewan McGregor, nails it. He is hunched over, as if trying to burrow into himself–a demeanor that we ghosts often assume. But in real life he’s much more confident. On “Good Morning America” in an interview promoting the movie, he gives George Stephanoupolos a run for his money. To set up the interview, they air  a clip in which the Ghost is subjected to a tense interview with the top brass at the publishing house. He admits that he’s not a politics buff: “I don’t read political memoirs. Who does?”

After the clip airs, Stephanoupolos says lightly, “As someone who has written one I’ll try not to take that personally.”

“You’ve written one?” McGregor shoots back.

“Yes,” Stephanoupolos mumbles, looking shocked that there is anyone left on the planet who doesn’t know his pedigree.

“Come on! How boring is it to write a book about politicians. Really, on a scale of one to 10, 10 right?”

By now Stephanoupolos is squirming and laughing uneasily. “I don’t — no! I wouldn’t think so.”

“I think it’s the antidote to insomnia probably,” McGregor finishes, clearly triumphant. And he is so right. Everyone knows that no one reads these things, at least not closely. In this town the index is the only thing that anyone studies, for one’s own name. 
 

There’s so much more I could say, but I wouldn’t want to spoil the movie for you. Besides, I’m saving some of what I know for my own memoirs. By Barbara Feinman Todd, as told to Barbara Feinman Todd.