'The Ghost Writer': A fascinating meditation on exile, Polanski style

Roman Polanski's terrific new thriller, "The Ghost Writer," deftly reminds us what has long made the director so effective, in movies like "Repulsion" (1965), "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) and "Chinatown" (1974): His singular knack for taking pulp and transforming it into tense, paranoid drama.

Based on a 2007 Robert Harris novel, the story follows a writer known only as The Ghost (Ewan McGregor) who is hired to rewrite the political memoirs of the former British prime minister (a nicely shifty Pierce Brosnan). The previous ghost writer committed suicide — or so it was said.

A more cautious man might walk away from the scenario, which sounds too good to be true — a quarter-million dollars for just four week's of work. But we're deep in Polanski territory, a world where good people are inexorably drawn into nightmarish circumstances. The Ghost quickly hops a plane to Massachusetts, where the prime minister is holed up.

"The Ghost Writer" was filmed before the director's most recent spate of legal troubles (though editing was reportedly completed at the Swiss chalet where he is currently under house arrest). Like many of Polanski's pictures, this new effort invites an autobiographical scrutiny that Polanski may or may not have intended.

As The Ghost arrives at the mansion, and finds himself locked in a room with the manuscript, the film turns into a fascinating meditation on the notion of exile. The prime minister, it turns out, is about to come under investigation by The Hague for possible war crimes. If he returns to England, he might be arrested.

"The Ghost Writer" doesn't quite have the emotional punch of Polanski's most paranoid classics — perhaps because the character of The Ghost remains a little too vaguely defined. McGregor is solid as a figure whose eyes are steadily opened to evildoing, but the screenplay never allows us to fully understand what's going on inside his head.

That said, the movie burns with so much style and sophisticated technique that you'll be more than willing to forgive this shortcoming.