The Interpreter: Movie, DVD, HD DVD Review (2005)

(Originally published 2005)

The tense, satisfying new thriller “The Interpreter” stars Nicole Kidman as Silvia Broome, an interpreter for the United Nations who overhears an alleged plot to kill Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), president of Matobo, the African nation in which Broome was born.

Since Matobo doesn't exist in real life--and since the movie was directed by Sydney Pollack, whose films sometimes have a political bent that echo real life--you naturally look around to see what might have influenced it.

You don't have to look far. Pollack makes it clear that Matobo is meant to be Zimbabwe and that Zuwanie is modeled after that country's president, Robert Mugabe, who fought to win independence from Britain in 1980 and thus became, to many Africans, a great liberator.

Twenty-five years later, Mugabe has lost his appeal. He has become a tyrant, rigging polls, starving his people and using coercion to retain his grip on power. It has worked. In spite of ruining his country's economy, he won just this month a controversial landslide bid for re-election.

In a way, Mugabe's story is the backbone for “The Interpreter,” which uses similar events and characters to build its own story, with flashes of Hitchcock's “North by Northwest” helping to round out the corners.

It follows Kidman's Silvia in the difficult days that follow her hearing about the alleged assassination, which is set to take place at the U.N. when Zuwanie arrives later that week to deliver a speech to the General Assembly.

Though she tells the authorities the day after she hears, nobody believes her, particularly Sean Penn's Tobin Keller, a Secret Service agent who recently lost his wife and whose gut says that Silvia is lying.

Along with his partner, Woods (Catherine Keener), Keller starts to investigate Silvia, which allows Pollack his second nod to Hitchcock in scenes that recall “Rear Window”--Keller and company take up shop in the building across from Silvia. There, through large windows, they watch her every move with binoculars. (Pollack's interest in Hitchcock isn't unusual. In 1960, he appeared in an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” In 1962, he directed two episodes of “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.”)

Without giving too much away, what Keller learns from his investigation is that Silvia has a secret past and ties to Matobo that go deeper than she led on. There are good reasons to suggest that she might want Zuwani dead herself. But if that's the case, then why would she have come to them warning about the assassination? Confused, Keller turns to what he does know--there is indeed a plot to assassinate Zuwanie, with some signs suggesting that even that might not be what it seems.

What builds from this is complex and compelling, with Kidman and Penn, both strong here, enjoying the sort of smart, brisk dialogue that reinforces their already undeniable chemistry. This is the first film to be shot inside the United Nations--access that feeds the movie with realism. Only occasionally does the script let the film down, particularly at the end, which is so forced and awkward, it's essentially a donkey stuck at the end of an attractive cart. Still, that's a quibble. “The Interpreter” wedges itself into a turbulent corner of the world and finds there a story worth telling.

Grade: B+