Tagline: The truth needs no translation.
The Interpreter movie storyline. Escalating events begin when U.N. interpreter Silvia Broome alleges that she has overheard a death threat against an African head of state, spoken in a rare dialect few people other than Silvia can understand. With the words “The Teacher will never leave this room alive,” in an instant, Silvia’s life is turned upside down as she becomes a hunted target of the killers. Placed under the protection of federal agent Tobin Keller, Silvia’s world only grows more nightmarish.
As Keller digs deeper into his eyewitnesses’ past and her secretive world of global connections, the more suspicious he becomes that she herself might be involved in the conspiracy. With every step of the way, he finds more reasons to mistrust her. Is Sylvia a victim? A suspect? Or something else entirely? And can Tobin, coping with his own personal heartache, keep her safe?
Though they must depend on one another, Silvia and Tobin couldn’t be more different. Silvia’s strengths are words, diplomacy and the subtleties of meaning, while Tobin is all about instinct, action and reading into the most primal human behaviors. Now, as the danger of a major assassination on U.S. soil grows and Silvia’s life hangs in the balance, Silvia and Tobin play out a gripping dance of evasion and revelation that keeps them both guessing as they race to stop a terrifying international crisis before it’s too late.
From Academy Award winner Sydney Pollack, the director behind some of the most compelling and provocative thrillers of the last two decades (Three Days of The Condor, Absence of Malice, The Firm), comes a fresh take on contemporary suspense: an intricate, knife’s-edge drama that unfolds against our 21st Century world of international terror and inside the United Nations’ hidden corridors of power.
Academy Award winners Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn star in The Interpreter, the story of two opposite people who unexpectedly collide within a maze of mounting paranoia, personal secrets and explosive global events. Shot on location in Manhattan and Southern Africa, The Interpreter is the first motion picture in history to receive inside access to the United Nations’ headquarters (which is officially international territory) in New York.
The picture was No. 1 In its opening weekend. According to Box Office Mojo, The Interpreter had a domestic gross of $72,708,161 and an international tally of $90,236,762, bringing the picture’s worldwide gross to $162,944,923 versus an $80 million budget, so the film was considered a box office success. In 2005, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded Catherine Keener as Best Supporting Actress, for her parts in several films including The Interpreter.
Setting a Story of Suspense Inside the United Nations
In the power-brokering halls of today’s United Nations-where wars, disasters and global crises are addressed and sometimes averted on a regular basis-every single word counts. No one knows this better than the U.N.’s highly trained, language-savvy interpreters, who spend their days in soundproof booths making sure the carefully chosen speeches of world leaders aren’t misunderstood as they negotiate peacemaking deals that will affect the lives of millions.
Usually, interpreters simply listen and translate. They are forbidden from getting involved. But what if an interpreter heard a secret so incendiary, so threatening to the world, that she couldn’t keep it confidential? And what if she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that by revealing the threat, her own life would be in mortal danger?
This gripping scenario became the jumping-off point for Sydney Pollack’s newest take on the high-intensity, thought-provoking thriller, The Interpreter, which pairs a classic, ticking-clock story of two people caught up in a conspiracy beyond their control with timely themes of global interconnectedness, rogue terror, the dangers of misinterpretation and the compelling need to speak the truth.
For Pollack-who has previously plunged into the fearsome, high-stakes world of a run-away CIA operation in Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway; explored love, vengeance and the power of the media in Absence of Malice with Paul Newman and Sally Field; and exposed the dark and savage side of becoming a corporate lawyer in The Firm, starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman-The Interpreter appeared to have all the immediacy, complexity and emotional veracity of a political thriller for our time.
Says Pollack, “I was attracted to The Interpreter for a number of reasons. The inner workings of the U.N. and the diplomatic world seemed to be truly fresh, and remarkably apt, terrain at the moment. This setting exposes the personal conflicts between Silvia and Tobin, two characters who come from opposing points of view and can’t, at first, seem to overcome the obstacles between them. A sophisticated, international woman who truly believes in the art of diplomacy, in words over violence, who bumps into a cop who deals with the most ugly and base side of human nature. The improbability of these two people coming together inside the context of a potentially explosive international situation and having to solve a mystery under intense time pressure-this seemed like rich material for a film to me.”
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The Interpreter (2005)
Directed by: Sydney Pollack
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Max Minghella, Catherine Keener, Jesper Christensen, Yvan Attal, Michael Wright, George Harris, Eric Keenleyside, Hugo Speer
Screenplay by: Charles Randolph, Scott Frank, Steven Zaillian
Production Design by: Jon Hutman
Cinematography by: Darius Khondji
Film Editing by: William Steinkamp
Costume Design by: Sarah Edwards
Set Decoration by: Beth A. Rubino
Music by: James Newton Howard
Art Direction by: W. Steven Graham, Zack Grobler, Tom Warren
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, some sexual content,language.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: April 22, 2005
Views: 172
