When Roman Polanski’s "The Ghost Writer" was released in 2010, somebody wrote to the late great Roger Ebert complaining about his decision to see and review the film. Ebert replied: "A film is a film. It is good or bad. If I began making moral judgments of directors -- or actors, or writers -- where would it end?"
Polanski‘s “An Officer and a Spy”, which won the Silver Lion at last month’s Venice Film Festival, will probably never be theatrically distributed and released in the United States. Due to the current socio-political climate in the country, Polanski has been canceled over a late ’70s statutory rape case — the same case which, lest we remember, didn’t stop the Academy from honoring Polanski with their Best Director statuette back in 2003 for the holocaust drama “The Pianist.”
I briefly mentioned to Hollywood-Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells, during our podcast this past weekend, that IMDB listed “An Officer and a Spy” as having already been released in Mexico, which prompted Wells to potentially book a last-minute trip to Mexico so that he could catch the movie. However, he couldn’t find a confirmation online that the Mexican release had indeed occurred.
And so, Wells decided to email Francois Yon who presides over Sales & Business Development for Playtime Group, the studio distributing the film all over Europe. Wells wrote, “How might I someday see An Officer and a Spy (aka J’Accuse) in this country? I realize that the odds are against theatrical distribution because of the wokester #MeToo political climate, but surely someone has the bravery to distribute this film, at the very least on a streaming basis.”
Yon responded, “Thank you Jeffrey. Maybe you should write about this situation and how the American audiences are being culturally cut out from the rest of the world. It did happen a few times in past American history so I remain hopeful that it will change once the Trump years are behind us.”
Is it so surprising that, despite “An Officer and a Spy” winning the second-place prize at Venice and topping polls there as well, American cinephiles will likely never see Roman Polanski’s latest in theaters? The film has been garnering glowing reviews in Europe. However, American critics have, unsurprisingly, panned the film.
“An Officer and a Spy” currently holds a 58% rotten score and 56 score on Metacritic.
IndieWire critic David Ehrlich (review), Variety’s Debprah Young (review), Variety’s Owen Gleiberman (review), The Playlist’s Christina Newland (review) and The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde (review) all disliked Polanski’s film. However, Glenn Kenny’s rave for RogerEbert.com was a nice and refreshing read. Kenny stated that the film “has something very real and urgent to say about the world we live in today. It's kind of a shame you'll probably never get to see it.”