USA Today

Claudia Puig

"4 stars! Riveting! A taut and gripping thriller that dazzles the eyes and engages the brain in a way that few recent films have come close to approaching. The story hurtles, jolts and fascinates from start to finish!

A masterwork of suspense, romance and political intrigue. That it offers passion, betrayal, gorgeous cinematography, social commentary, stellar performances and clever wit puts it in a special category near perfection. The movie has an epic feel that could make it a best-picture Oscar contender and result in nominations for several actors. The chemistry between Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz is palpable, and their fiery love story is all the more moving as it is set against the vibrant backdrop of the African countryside.

It is a taut and gripping thriller that dazzles the eyes and engages the brain in a way that few recent films have come close to approaching."

ABC Radio Network

Bill Diehl

"Four stars for The Constant Gardener. A gripping, thrilling morality tale. Ralph Fiennes delivers an Oscar caliber performance. A film that will stay with you long after it's ended. It's one of the best films of the year."

Ebert & Roeper

Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper

"Two thumbs way up."

Ebert & Roeper

Roger Ebert

"A thriller, a love story…and a terrific movie. It's also very, very, very alive. The key is the combination of the John le Carré story and the brilliant direction of Fernando Meirelles. One of the places it might go is the Academy Awards this year.

A thriller, a love story, and angry attack on drug companies, and a terrific movie. The key is the combination of the le Carré story and the brilliant direction of Fernando Meirelles.

The Constant Gardener is much deeper and more complex than simply an attack on pharmaceutical companies. I admire that Meirelles and the screenwriter were able to condense and deal with that le Carré novel.

It's also very, very, very alive in its visual style."

Ebert & Roeper

Richard Roeper

"Ralph Fiennes as the center of this movie, it's such a complex performance. Beautifully photographed, some stunning shots.

Rachel Weisz, very good as well. And it is a complex story and it's the kind of thing where afterward, you really want to think about this movie and talk about it. And I appreciate it more in the days after I saw it and I thought more about how everything came together in the flashbacks.

This is a tough subject matter to handle, because you get a book that's so complex like that (sic) lesser hands it could have turned into this mish-mash, but with the flashbacks, everything is clearly done and you get to the final scenes, and I don't want to say anything about where it goes, but it makes sense that's what would happen to the Ralph Fiennes character.

Yeah, it's a great film.

ET

Leonard Maltin

"Passionate filmmaking of the highest order… Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are terrific together in this artful film that combines the best elements of a political thriller and a love story."

The Today Show

Gene Shalit

"Rachel Weisz is exemplary – piercingly strident, perilously outspoken, even descending to dissembling. The Constant Gardener is fertile soil for the politically afflicted, and for those outraged by liars in government and scoundrels in multinational corporations."

Elle

Karen Durbin

"Electrifying entertainment! A hair-raising thriller! One of the best movies of the year. Has the structure and suspense of a classic mystery…building to an unforgettable finale. Fernando Meirelles proves himself a world-class director. Passionate filmmaking.

With a compulsively watchable adaptation of John le Carré's 2000 best-selling novel, The Constant Gardener, Fernando Meirelles proves himself a world-class director, making his English-language debut with one of the best movies of the year.

Brilliantly shot among the raw beauty and poverty of Africa, The Constant Gardener is a love story, a character study, and a hair-raising political thriller.

But the movie's investigation of responsibility is more extensive and disturbing than any simple whodunit. One of the movie's more paradoxical satisfactions is the sense it gives you of seeing the truth of how the world works – and it's not pretty.

Fernando Meirelles and cinematographer César Charlone surprise us again and again with pleasure and visual wit, whether it's a scene of love making shot in such tight close-up that it feels like an erotic jigsaw puzzle or the movie's portrait of Kenya, so eye-poppingly alive that it's never reduced to backdrop, nor its people mere victims. Building to an unforgettable finale that's both tragic and triumphant, The Constant Gardener is passionate filmmaking, the kind that calls you to account as it breaks your heart."

Entertainment Weekly

Michelle Kung

"A thriller with brains! Meirelles proves his 2003 Oscar nod for Best Director was no fluke."

Paper Magazine

Dennis Dermody

"Unbelievably suspenseful! A superb political thriller! It never loses sight of its political consciousness or the deeply romantic bond between the two leads.

Ralph Fiennes imbues his performance with a quiet intensity, and while the movie is unbearably suspenseful at times, it never loses sight of its political consciousness or the deeply romantic bond between the two leads."

People

Jason Lynch

"Critic's choice! Glorious! Director Fernando Meirelles paints a vivid, breathing portrait of a fascinating foreign land. Ralph Fiennes is a master of restraint. He and Rachel Weisz have an easy, tender rapport. The perfect antidote to three months of mostly brainless summer fare.

3.5 stars.

This year grown-ups are in luck: The thinking cap went on early thanks to this glorious drama based on John le Carré’s 2000 novel. Always artfully understated, Ralph Fiennes is a master of restraint here.

Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz have an easy, tender rapport.

Director Fernando Meirelles again paints a vivid, breathing portrait of a fascinating foreign land."

Rolling Stone Magazine

Peter Travers

"A sizzling thriller that ends summer on a high note!

One of the year's best and most provocative movies!

Prepare for a thrilling ride!

The Constant Gardener comes in the nick of time to prove a point: movies that give a damn do have a place in summer. Director Fernando Meirelles performs visual miracles that resonate with feeling. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz give every gesture and glance a haunting erotic urgency. Rachel Weisz is electrifying in her richest role to date. Ralph Fiennes plays this reluctant hero like a gathering storm, his performance growing in power. Long after it's over, you still feel its sting.

Time

Richard Corliss

"An exhilarating take on John le Carré's novel! A film of nuance and power, flawlessly acted and an adventure to watch."

Us Weekly

Thelma Adams

"Ralph Fiennes delivers the kind of emotional, soulful, magnetic performance that recalls The English Patient. Rachel Weisz conveys both fire and depth. She and Ralph Fiennes have sexual chemistry and more. The blending of the adult romance and political thriller is exquisitely handled by director Fernando Meirelles. The movie deftly shifts in tone: tender in the sex scenes, tense as the mystery slaloms through each new plot revelation."

Vanity Fair

Michael Hogan

"That rare film – one with a brain, a heart and a conscience. Rachel Weisz gives a searing performance."

Vogue

John Powers

"John le Carré, the finest thriller writer of the last 50 years, who patiently spins a spiderweb of intrigue filament by filament.

Thanks to Rachel Weisz, a smart, confidently carnal actress, the screen version Tessa isn't just believable but compelling. Whether badgering a corrupt dignitary or conquering Justin with her dark challenge of her eyes, Weisz has a fleshy brio that keeps her tethered to planet Earth. She helps bring out the best in Ralph Fiennes, who gives his richest performance since The English Patient.

Ralph Fiennes makes us feel the constant evolution from a cautious invertebrate to a man of decisive moral action."

LA Weekly

Ella Taylor

"Gripping! A smart, beautiful piece of storytelling! Rachel Weisz is luscious and intelligent. Fernando Meirelles has a sense of place at once visceral and lyrical … teems with life and movement.

John le Carré's absorbing, if baggy, 2001 thriller.

Gripping though it is, The Constant Gardener is in dire need of a loving, fearless editor, and it has found one in director Fernando Meirelles.

A smart, beautiful piece of storytelling, attentive to le Carré's broad intent.

Fernando Meirelles has a sense of place at once visceral and lyrical and the same skills that went into making City of God such a blast show up in his Nairobi slums, which, though hardly sentimentalized, teem with vivid life and movement, their luminous yellows, oranges and browns glowing in sharp contrast to the glum gray-green murk of London.

Sir Bernard Pellegrin, who's wonderfully underplayed by the great Bill NIghy in what is one of the movie's funniest and most insidious scenes"

The New Yorker

Anthony Lane

"The visions conjured here have a savor and a bite that feel anything but blurred…that we nevertheless emerge from the movie feeling nourished and stirred is a tribute to Fernando Meirelles and, of course, to John le Carré.

The Constant Gardener returns him (Ralph Fiennes) to the line of inquiry that he dropped after The English Patient and that he alone, these days, seems qualified to pursue: What happens to a gentleman when gentility is no longer enough?"

The New Times

A.O. Scott

"Excellent. Unusually satisfying. A supremely well-executed piece of popular entertainment that is likely to linger in your mind. Ralph Fiennes has a peculiar kind of negative charisma. In his best performances, he commands the screen by deflecting attention, as though he wished the camera could hide him from our scrutiny rather than exposing him to us. It is hard to think of another movie actor who can be so convincingly shy, so protective of the psychological privacy of his characters.

“Mr. Meirelles's film actually bothers to say something about global politics…the movie shows a willingness to risk didacticism in the service of encouraging discussion. This strikes me as noble, but it would also strike me as annoying if Mr. Meirelles were not such a skilled and subtle filmmaker, and if his cast were not so sensitive and sly.

This is a supremely well-executed piece of popular entertainment that is likely to linger in your mind.

One cannot help but feel that his camera – operated by the exceptionally gifted Uruguayan cinematographer Cesar Charlone – feels more at home in the rusty heat of Africa than in the chilly, gray austerity of Europe. There is, in his beautiful, crowded frames, a palpable tension between foreground and background…constrained by the screenwriter Jeffrey Caine's nimble streamlining of Mr. le Carré's book, the director manages a more consistent tone, and implies more violence than he shows. There are nonetheless scenes – in particular a rebel raid on a refugee camp in Sudan – whose sheer cinematic intensity makes them more dazzling than appalling."

HollywoodReporter.com

Martin A. Grove

"The Constant Gardener could put Meirelles back in the awards nominations spotlight.

Both Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz could grow into contenders in this year's Golden Globe and Oscar races for, respectively, best actor and best supporting actress."

Campus Circle

Rahwa Asmeron

"The Constant Gardener brilliantly exposes a story of the alarming pharmaceutical industry while depicting sacrificial love for the sake of justice. The film's sense of urgency and hard-hitting reality permeates every dimension of the story. The Constant Gardener is and outstandingly rare film."