The Constant Gardener ( film ) - wikipedia The Constant Gardener ( film ) The Constant Gardener Theatrical release poster Directed by Fernando Meirelles Produced by Simon Channing Williams Gail Egan Screenplay by Jeffrey Caine Based on The Constant Gardener by John le Carré Starring Ralph Fiennes Rachel Weisz Danny Huston Bill Nighy Pete Postlethwaite Music by Alberto Iglesias Robert Church Cinematography César Charlone Edited by Claire Simpson Distributed by Focus Features Release date 31 August 2005 ( 2005 - 08 - 31 ) ( United States ) 11 November 2005 ( 2005 - 11 - 11 ) ( United Kingdom ) Running time 129 minutes Language English German Swahili Budget $25 million Box office $82,466,670 The Constant Gardener is a 2005 political thriller film directed by Fernando Meirelles. The screenplay by Jeffrey Caine is based on John le Carré 's eponymous 2001 novel. The story follows Justin Quayle ( Ralph Fiennes ), a British diplomat in Kenya, as he tries to solve the murder of his wife Tessa ( Rachel Weisz ), an Amnesty activist, alternating with many flashbacks telling the story of their love. The film also stars Hubert Koundé, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy, and Donald Sumpter. It was filmed on location in Loiyangalani and the slums of Kibera, a section of Nairobi, Kenya. Circumstances in the area affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust in order to provide basic education for these villages. The plot was vaguely based on a real - life case in Kano, Nigeria. The DVD versions were released in the United States on 1 January 2006 and in the United Kingdom on 13 March 2006. Justin 's gentle but diligent attention to his plants is a recurring background theme, from which image the film 's title is derived. Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Reception 3.1 Box office 3.2 Critical response 3.3 Awards 4 Author 's dedication and afterword 5 See also 6 References 7 External links Plot Justin Quayle ( Ralph Fiennes ), a shy, low - level British diplomat and horticultural hobbyist posted in Kenya, is one to avoid making a fuss until he learns that his wife Tessa ( Rachel Weisz ) was found dead in the veld. Tessa has been murdered at a crossroads along with her Kenyan driver. Her colleague, Dr. Arnold Bluhm ( Hubert Koundé ), is initially suspected of her murder but is later found to have himself been murdered on the same day as Tessa. Various rumours abound that the two were having an affair ; however, it is later revealed that Bluhm was gay. In flashbacks, we see how in London, Justin met his future wife Tessa, an outspoken humanitarian and Amnesty activist. He falls in love with her, and she persuades him to take her back with him to Kenya. Despite their loving marriage, Tessa keeps from Justin the reason why she approached him in the first place : to investigate a suspicious drug trial in Kenya and expose it. When Tessa starts getting too close to uncovering the malpractices of an influential and powerful pharmaceutical company, she and her colleague are brutally murdered. As the mystery surrounding his wife 's death unfolds, Justin becomes determined to get to the bottom of her murder. He soon runs up against a drug corporation that is using Kenya 's population for fraudulent testing of a tuberculosis drug ( `` Dypraxa '' ). The drug has known harmful side effects, but the corporation completely disregards the well - being of its underprivileged African test subjects. Sir Bernard Pellegrin ( Bill Nighy ) heads the Africa Desk at the Foreign Office and is the boss both of Justin and the British High Commissioner, Sandy Woodrow ( Danny Huston ). In his investigations, Justin discovers that Tessa hid from him a report about the deaths caused by Dypraxa, and he obtains an incriminating letter that Tessa took from Sandy. Justin confronts Sandy, who tells him that what Tessa wanted was to stop the Dypraxa tests and redesign the drug. However, this would have cost millions of dollars and significantly delayed the drug 's release, during which time other competing drugs would have surfaced. Pellegrin considered Tessa 's report too damaging and proclaimed she had to be stopped. The company threatens Justin : he must stop his investigations or meet his wife 's fate. In one instance, agents are sent to beat him up. Still determined, Justin takes a UN aid plane to the village where the doctor lives who provided Tessa with the clinical data behind her report. The doctor gives Justin a copy of the report, but the village is raided by armed tribesmen on horseback, and Justin and the doctor are forced to flee from the carnage to the plane. Justin has the plane drop him off at the place where Tessa died. There he thinks about Tessa ; he tells her memory that he knows all her secrets, that he understands her now, and that he is coming home. Following his reverie, he is killed in an organized hit. At Tessa and Justin 's funeral, Arthur Hammond ( Tessa 's close cousin and Justin 's friend ) reads the incriminating letter written by Bernard Pellegrin to Sandy Woodrow. In the letter, Pellegrin ordered the surveillance of Tessa, expressly to block her reports detailing the deaths caused by Dypraxa. The company could not be held responsible for the Dypraxa deaths if they never officially received the reports. The scandal having been revealed, Pellegrin leaves the ceremony followed by journalists. Cast Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle Rachel Weisz as Tessa Abbott - Quayle Danny Huston as Sandy Woodrow Hubert Koundé as Arnold Bluhm Archie Panjabi as Ghita Pearson Bill Nighy as Sir Bernard Pellegrin Gerard McSorley as Sir Kenneth Curtis Pete Postlethwaite as Dr. Lorbeer Donald Sumpter as Tim Donohue Donald Apiyo as Kioko Reception Box office The film 's worldwide gross was $82,466,670. Critical response Reviews have generally been very positive. On the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 83 % of 181 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews, and its average rating was 7.6 out of 10. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun - Times called it `` one of the year 's best films. '' USA Today noted that the film 's `` passion, betrayal, gorgeous cinematography, social commentary, stellar performances and clever wit puts it in a special category near perfection ''. However, Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice criticized the film as `` a cannonballing mélange of hack - cuts, impressionistic close - ups, and tropical swelter. '' Awards The film was nominated for four Academy Awards : Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, and Best Supporting Actress ( Weisz ). Weisz won both an Oscar and Golden Globe for her performance. The film was also nominated for two other Golden Globe Awards : Best Motion Picture ( Drama ), and Best Director. Additionally, Weisz won the 2005 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. The film was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. It also won the award for Best Editing. The film won the award for Best Film at the London Critics Circle Film Awards, British Independent Film Awards, and Evening Standard British Film Awards. The film also received the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards. Author 's dedication and afterword John le Carré, in the first edition of the 2001 novel on which the film is based, provided both a dedication and a personal afterword. The dedication and part of the afterword ( amended ) are reproduced in the closing credits of the film. The first states : `` This film is dedicated to Yvette Pierpaoli and all other aid workers who lived and died giving a damn ''. The latter continues ( in the next credit ) : `` Nobody in this story, and no outfit or corporation, thank God, is based upon an actual person or outfit in the real world, but I can tell you this, as my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard ''. The text appears over John le Carré 's name. See also Film portal Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. Medicine Man References ^ Jump up to : `` The Constant Gardener ( 2005 ) ''. Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 7 October 2010. Jump up ^ `` The Constant Gardener ( 2005 ) ''. Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 7 October 2010. Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger ( 1 September 2005 ). `` The Constant Gardener review ''. Chicago Sun - Times. Retrieved 7 October 2010. Jump up ^ Atkinson, Michael ( 23 August 2005 ). `` Cold Comfort Pharm ''. The Village Voice. Retrieved 7 October 2010. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : The Constant Gardener ( film ) Official website The Constant Gardener on IMDb The Constant Gardener at AllMovie The Constant Gardener at Rotten Tomatoes The Constant Gardener at Box Office Mojo Films directed by Fernando Meirelles O Menino Maluquinho 2 ( 1998 ) Domésticas ( 2001 ) Cidade de Deus ( 2002 ) The Constant Gardener ( 2005 ) Blindness ( 2008 ) 360 ( 2011 ) Works by John le Carré Novels Call for the Dead ( 1961 ) A Murder of Quality ( 1962 ) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ( 1963 ) The Looking Glass War ( 1965 ) A Small Town in Germany ( 1968 ) The Naïve and Sentimental Lover ( 1971 ) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ( 1974 ) The Honourable Schoolboy ( 1977 ) Smiley 's People ( 1979 ) The Little Drummer Girl ( 1983 ) A Perfect Spy ( 1986 ) The Russia House ( 1989 ) The Secret Pilgrim ( 1990 ) The Night Manager ( 1993 ) Our Game ( 1995 ) The Tailor of Panama ( 1996 ) Single & Single ( 1999 ) The Constant Gardener ( 2001 ) Absolute Friends ( 2003 ) The Mission Song ( 2006 ) A Most Wanted Man ( 2008 ) Our Kind of Traitor ( 2010 ) A Delicate Truth ( 2013 ) Films The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ( 1965 ) The Deadly Affair ( 1966 ) The Looking Glass War ( 1969 ) The Little Drummer Girl ( 1984 ) The Russia House ( 1990 ) The Tailor of Panama ( 2001 ) The Constant Gardener ( 2005 ) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ( 2011 ) A Most Wanted Man ( 2014 ) Our Kind of Traitor ( 2016 ) Television Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ( 1979 ) Smiley 's People ( 1982 ) A Perfect Spy ( 1987 ) A Murder of Quality ( 1991 ) The Night Manager ( 2016 ) Characters Control Toby Esterhase Peter Guillam Bill Haydon Karla Jim Prideaux Connie Sachs George Smiley Ricki Tarr Gerald Westerby Miscellaneous Moscow Centre Constant Gardener Trust The Incongruous Spy Smiley Versus Karla Book BIFA Award for Best British Independent Film My Name Is Joe ( 1998 ) Wonderland ( 1999 ) Billy Elliot ( 2000 ) Sexy Beast ( 2001 ) Sweet Sixteen ( 2002 ) Dirty Pretty Things ( 2003 ) Vera Drake ( 2004 ) The Constant Gardener ( 2005 ) This Is England ( 2006 ) Control ( 2007 ) Slumdog Millionaire ( 2008 ) Moon ( 2009 ) The King 's Speech ( 2010 ) Tyrannosaur ( 2011 ) Broken ( 2012 ) Metro Manila ( 2013 ) Pride ( 2014 ) Ex Machina ( 2015 ) American Honey ( 2016 ) London Film Critics ' Circle British Film of the Year Life Is Sweet ( 1991 ) Howards End ( 1992 ) The Remains of the Day ( 1993 ) Four Weddings and a Funeral ( 1994 ) The Madness of King George ( 1995 ) Secrets & Lies ( 1996 ) The Full Monty ( 1997 ) Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ( 1998 ) East Is East ( 1999 ) Billy Elliot ( 2000 ) Gosford Park ( 2001 ) All or Nothing ( 2002 ) The Magdalene Sisters ( 2003 ) Vera Drake ( 2004 ) The Constant Gardener ( 2005 ) The Queen ( 2006 ) Control ( 2007 ) Slumdog Millionaire ( 2008 ) Fish Tank ( 2009 ) The King 's Speech ( 2010 ) We Need to Talk About Kevin ( 2011 ) Berberian Sound Studio ( 2012 ) The Selfish Giant ( 2013 ) Under the Skin ( 2014 ) 45 Years ( 2015 ) I, Daniel Blake ( 2016 ) VIAF : 316752215 GND : 7549155 - 2 SUDOC : 163273049 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Constant_Gardener_(film)&oldid=802159760 '' Categories : 2005 films 2000s thriller films BAFTA winners ( films ) Thriller drama films English - language films Films directed by Fernando Meirelles Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award - winning performance Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe - winning performance Films set in Kenya Films set in Sudan Focus Features films Films based on works by John le Carré Nonlinear narrative films Political thriller films Medical - themed films Film scores by Alberto Iglesias Hidden categories : Use dmy dates from July 2013 Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Azərbaycanca Български Català Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Euskara فارسی Français Galego 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית ქართული Lietuvių Magyar Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Polski Português Русский Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 24 September 2017, at 10 : 38. 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Question: what is the movie the constant gardener about
Answer: a British diplomat in Kenya