Rachel WeiszChris Young/The Canadian Press
At an empty morning dining table tucked into a corner of the Windsor Arms Hotel, Rachel Weisz almost disappears into the dark, except for the glittering of sparkles on her jacket.
While her significant other, director Darren Aronofsky, is promoting his new ballet extravaganza, Black Swan, at the festival, Weisz is here to talk about a much more intimate project, the Canadian-originated film The Whistleblower. In the reality-based story about international sex trafficking, Weisz plays former Nebraskan cop Kathryn Bolkovac, who was fired from her job as a UN contract peacekeeper in 2002 after exposing her company's complicity in sex trafficking in post-war Bosnia. Because of diplomatic immunity laws, no one was charged.
The political thriller is a first feature directed by Canadian Larysa Kondracki, co-written with a Columbia University classmate, Eilis Kirwan. One might immediately assume that Weisz, now 40, who won an Oscar for her performance in the 2005 film The Constant Gardener, was drawn to another story about Third World exploitation. Yet she is quick to down play the idea that socially conscious movies can change the world.
"I'm interested in [international politics] but you would be unimpressed by my knowledge," she says. "Sure, I would rather tell a story about something important than something that's not important, but I didn't take the role just because of the subject or I could just make a documentary about it.
"For me, it's also a character piece about a woman who has a certain personality. I'm fascinated by people who are noble but flawed. Not just noble, because I don't know what that is. I like people who are as screwed up as we all are who do something extraordinary.
"Most people would turn a blind eye to what Kathryn saw, and most did. You could say she was tenacious. You could say she was a pain in the ass – but I don't think it was a choice for her. And that's what really interested me in her character. She had three kids before she was 22 and her marriage was not a success, but she was a brilliant cop, which may have been why other parts of her life weren't working so well."
Weisz talked with Kondracki over the phone for several months, and she says her main concern was that the film emphasized character, rather than the thriller aspect of the story.
"Nowadays, it's very difficult to get character in a thriller. Really, forget about it. If you go back to movies like Norma Rae and Silkwood, they're three-quarters character and one quarter plot. Nowadays people, or at least the people who get movies made, don't have any patience for character. "