This was a summer of inane remakes and adaptations of mediocre old TV shows. A few of this season's films will resonate, though, for years to come-such as March of the Penguins, Luc Jacquet's fascinating nature documentary; Broken Flowers, Jim Jarmusch's tender look backward at relationships past (through the eyes of Bill Murray); Hustle & Flow, Craig Brewer's Cinderella-like tale of a Memphis pimp whose wish is to rap; and John Singleton's Four Brothers, a gritty urban tale of siblings searching for their mother's killer.

Add to this list The Constant Gardener, adapted from the novel by John Le Carre. Ralph Fiennes stars as Justin Quayle, a polite civil servant working for the British High Com-mission in Nairobi, Kenya. Justin spends much of his spare time tending his garden, while his younger activist wife, Tessa, brilliantly portrayed by Rachel Weisz, crusades against poverty and social injustice. When she's found brutally murdered on a remote beach, her mild-mannered husband can't accept the conclusion that her death was a crime of passion. It seems that her traveling companion, a handsome young doctor, is now missing.

Fiennes begins a far-reaching investigation on his own, going through an astonishingly effective character transformation in the process. Initially containing his grief, he channels it into a growing suspicion, eventual anger, then action. Along the way, this Everyman-turned-Hero uncovers an international conspiracy involving the powerful, multinational pharmaceutical companies who need the desperately sick indigenous population of Africa to test their drugs. As Justin questions who might want his wife dead, he realizes that she, too, had uncovered the plot, and comes face to face with thugs, spies, and corrupt executives. In the wake of her death, he comes to understand the principles Tess had fought for, and why he still loves her so fiercely.

Weisz, who first became a star in The Mummy (1999) and its sequel, two years later, shows every emotion necessary to make her character, an activist investigating a growing scandal, three-dimensional. The use of flashbacks helps us understand her motivations, and grieve for the sad fate that we know awaits her.

Others in the cast add depth and credibility. Danny Huston portrays Sandy, Fiennes' best friend and colleague. Bill Nighy, so enjoyable as the aging rock star in Love, Actually, is Fiennes' London-based superior-and crucial to the fast-moving plot.

Brazilian-born director Fernando Meirelles, Oscar-nominated for his direction of City of God in 2003, has intelligently used flashbacks to lead us carefully through the complicated web of deceit, murder, and corporate scandal. What stands out most is the distinct sense of time and place. The country is a paradox: breathtaking vistas, gut-wrenching poverty and disease, and conflicting agendas. It all adds up to a hauntingly beautiful movie you will remember for years, despite the cumbersome title.

An altogether different audience will enjoy Just Like Heaven, a feel-good entry in the so-called "airplane-movie" genre. Reese Witherspoon, best known for the 2001 Legally Blonde and its 2003 sequel (in which she's pretty in pink), is Elizabeth, a San Francisco workaholic nurse who has just received a promotion at her hospital. Unexpectedly, a car accident leaves her comatose, freeing her spirit to wander the earth, at a loss with what to do with all of her down time.

Mark Ruffalo, an actor I have found to be tedious in previous roles, gives his most appealing performance to date as David, a lonely, slightly cynical architect (not the best housekeeper), who has moved into Elizabeth's to-die-for apartment. She shows up, appalled at his habits, and refusing to accept that the place is no longer hers. In an age-old plot device, David becomes the only person who can see Elizabeth's spirit, and wants to help her to "the other side." What makes this film different from the 1937 Topper (starring Cary Grant as George Kerby), or even the 1950 Harvey, (a six-foot rabbit visible only to James Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd), is that Elizabeth isn't so sure that she's dead and doesn't want to "pass over" to anywhere. As the couple grows closer, she realizes there's a very narrow window of time for her to go one way, or the other.

Handed a familiar premise, director Mark Waters uses the engaging Witherspoon effectively, with a few predictable yet helpful special effects.... She is one of the few child stars of her generation to make an easy transition to young-adult roles. Here, her feistiness is infectious-in fact, it drives the movie. Waters directed the edgy The House of Yes (1997) and the effective 2003 remake of Freaky Friday, one of the last childhood roles by the now anorexic-looking Lindsay Lohan. Next year, he'll direct a remake of Danny Kaye's '31947 minor classic, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, about a mild-mannered comic-book writer imagining heroic deeds.

It's also been a summer of interesting niche movies, including the independent film Into the Fire, written and directed by Michael Phelan. Sean Patrick Flanery (whose resume is filled with little-seen movies including Frank and Jesse in 1994 and The Grass Harp and Raging Angels in 1995) stars as Walter Hartwig Jr., a lieutenant in the NYC Harbor Patrol. After a jet crashes on its final approach to JFK, he and his crew must dive for survivors, which leads him to confront a tragedy from his own past.

Melina Kanakaredes, of C.S.I.: NY and the departed series Providence, co-stars in this somber but compelling drama. Here, she portrays a Brooklyn music teacher whose twin sister was on her way home from performing with the London Symphony, aboard the ill-fated flight. JoBeth Williams fills the poignant role of a mother of a firefighter killed on 9/11, who befriends the melancholy lieutenant.

The lives of all three characters collide on this one tragic night, told from the vantage point of Lt. Hartwig. It's a fine rainy-day movie.

Don't miss the engrossing documentary Grizzly Man, written, narrated, and directed by Werner Herzog, and now in national release. The film features footage by the eccentric grizzly-bear activist Timothy Treadwell, the former waiter, aspiring actor, and recovering alcoholic who resembled a California surfer. For 14 summers, he lived among the grizzlies in the Alaskan wild-until at the age of 45, he and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were tragically mauled and killed in a bear attack in 2003. Most of the film is a compilation of the bizarre and troubled man's own video footage. It is fascinating viewing-what a reality show was meant to be.

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