Working for a personal biography company for the last two years, I have learned that when it comes to life stories of almost any sort, what hits the page is very rarely the full picture. Much like a Victorian portrait, the biography becomes a slightly more polished image of an individual. Although words of judgmental or controversial honesty may spill out of a subject's mouth into a first draft, by the final, many have often been cut. Although certain unresolved issues or still raw events may inform nearly every aspect of an individual's story, in a finished project, often the only place they can even be even intuited is in unspoken subtext. And not unheard of even as the books are being handed out to family and friends alike—that whispered confession from the devoted father/mother/husband/wife that what they did not tell you was that they had a fifteen year affair with their husband/wife's best friend.

Take those realities and shift them into the creation of an autobiography of one of Britain's former Prime Ministers and what you've got is the basis for The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski's latest film starring Pierce Brosnan as former British Prime Minister Adam Lang and Ewan McGregor as his ghost writer. However, the difference between the jobs that I have been involved in and the one that McGregor's character takes on is that before McGregor has even started work on the book, the project has already been marked by the suspicious death of the former ghost writer. The conditions under which McGregor's ghost agrees to take on the project involve not only multiple confidentiality agreements but nuclear-weapon like security of the pages that have already been written; and less than twenty-four hours after the ghost arrives at Lang's house to begin writing, Lang is named the subject of investigation for war crimes he allegedly perpetrated during his term.

As for how the mystery unfolds, it certainly isn't Polanski's best. With major clues revealed in under 30 seconds of Internet searching and almost all of its compelling arcs of suspense killed after they have barely begun, neither is it anywhere close to claiming a spot as the political thriller of the year. However, as McGregor's ghost along with others attempt to make sense of Lang's life story, we begin to see the increasing possibility that while the ghost and his predecessor may be the only authors who have actually contributed to Lang's memoir, there may very well be many other ghosts that have helped author Lang's actual life. And in that growing possibility forms what is actually a fascinating look at not only the writing of history's pages but its creation in each individual life.

Looking at the story from McGregor's perspective, what we see is the typical position of a ghost writer. He is the name that comes after the "with" following his more famous subjects' bylines. He is the one who crafts the perfect quotes to immediately be attributed to others. But as we quickly see, with a subject certain about what his story both is and is not and an office full of publicists, lawyers, and security personnel keeping a careful eye on all the ghost is writing and researching, McGregor's ghost is never the one with the power to determine or decide any details of the story he is writing. Where problems arise: when any ghost writer decides he's not comfortable writing the story he has been told to write. And as we see, if that ghost truly exists as merely the conveyor of a certain story or message that its actual authors are determined to tell, he'd better watch his back.

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