Time‘s Richard Corliss writes that a generic Ralph Fiennes performance — and particularly the very fine one he gives in The Constant Gardener (Focus Features, 8.31)– “is a miniature device with intricate moving parts. Movie directors often want their actors to ‘go bigger.’ Fiennes goes smaller — and inside. His onscreen speech is a mix of concealments and confidences, of whispers in a cave or under the covers. And he’s not speaking softly just so you will be startled when he explodes.” A striking example is a scene in which Fiennes, playing a British diplomat stationed in Kenya, is told that his wife Tessa (Rachel Weiscz) may have been killed. “As the camera holds on him, searching for a reaction, Fiennes doesn’t conjure up a rage or a gasp. He doesn’t gush a stream of tears or obscenities. He moves hardly at all. Yet alert viewers will see his pale face turn a shade ashen. They will watch his spirit sink as he struggles to retain propriety. Somehow a symphony of grief, suspicion and copelessness plays lightly on his sharp, elegant features.”