The Constant Gardener (2005)

In a remote area of Northern Kenya, activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) is found brutally murdered. Tessa's companion, a doctor, appears to have fled the scene, and the evidence points to a crime of passion. Members of the British High Commission in Nairobi assume that Tessa's widower, their mild-mannered and unambitious colleague Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), will leave the matter to them. They could not be more wrong. Haunted by remorse and jarred by rumors of his late wife's infidelities, Quayle surprises everyone by embarking on a personal odyssey that will take him across three continents. Using his privileged access to diplomatic secrets, he will risk his own life, stopping at nothing to uncover and expose the truth - a conspiracy more far-reaching and deadly than Quayle could ever have imagined. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Marcus Lorbeer (played by Pete Postlethwaite) wears a baseball cap that has a yellow equal sign (=) inside a blue square. This is the logo of Human Rights Campaign, a non-profit organization that lobbies for equal rights based upon sexual orientation and gender identity. It is the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender advocacy organization in the United States. After filming, the Constant Gardener Trust was set-up to help the inhabitants of the slums near Nairobi where the crew had been filming. The scene where Tessa (Rachel Weisz) walks through the slum, numerous children ask her "How are you?" and she responds "I'm fine, how are you?" was unscripted. The children are actual children who live in Kibera and not extras. The makers installed water tanks, a new bridge and a classroom in Kibera, the slum at which the film was shot. They also built a secondary school in the desert of northern Kenya where the final scenes were photographed. The character Tessa Quayle was based on famous social activist and charity worker Yvette Pierpaoli, who was killed in 1999 with two other social workers when their truck crashed in Albania. The book was written in her memory.

The scenery in this movie is amazing. The film makers initially went to Kenya (where the book is based to see it then move on to South Africa to find location since most of the films that are filmed in Africa are filmed in South Africa, but within 24 hours they knew that they had to film in Kenya and I think that made a great deal of difference, they didn't film on sets, the scenes in the slum of Kibera were film there. Rachel Weisz was absolutely delightful as Tessa and deserved the Oscar nomination she got. Ralph Fiennes was pretty good as the meek garden loving husband who is truely in love with his wife and would do anything for her.