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"Shattered Glass" is the story of Stephen Glass, a reporter for the cerebral and highly respected New Republic magazine, who, during his tenure at TNR during the early 90's, made a huge splash as the youngest journalist on staff, and the one with the "sexiest" stories. The problem was that Glass was not a journalist performing amazing journalistic feats. He was a journalist writing fiction--which is a nice way of saying he was a bottom-class liar. Glass "cooked"--doctored or fictionalized--over half of the stories he submitted while working for TNR; to some pieces, he simply added a fanciful dash of detail, while others were total fabrications. This may not seem like much to people used to seeing tabloid stories of Oprah's UFO encounters each day on supermarket shelves; on the surface, Glass's fantasies seem harmless enough. But for anyone thinking about the way they're connected to the world beyond their living room, his actions are downright chilling. They cut straight to the heart of a problem affecting everyone who doesn't have a front-row seat within all of the world's exclusive power chambers--and that means just about all of us. We rely on journalism to give us an unbiased view of politics, global events, and cultural phenomena. More and more, though, the complaint is that objectivity is a lost cause, that the "free press" has been bought out by lobbyists and corporate CEOs, that the once-crusading journalist is either the sellout creating a half-baked Associated Press story, or the parrot reading, verbatim, whatever comes in over the AP wires, without the slightest interest in fact-checking or the piece's social relevance. How do we find out what's going on in the world if the free press isn't doing its job? If we can't trust them--if nobody is holding them to the highest standards of truth and dignity--then who do we trust?
"Shattered Glass" brings this dilemma beautifully to life. Hayden Christensen is deft and wonderful as the seemingly deferential, self-deprecating, wide-eyed young writer who is oh-so-modest about the witty and revealing slice-of-life pieces he's turning in at the normally "stuffy" New Republic. Christensen's aw-shucks Glass is beloved by his co-workers and courted by competing editors. But--in his mind, at least--he's willing to tell young journalism students that humility is merely a tactic, a way of standing out from the other sharks in the shark tank. He's also able, in the same fashion, to share the secret of his success: for all the fact-checking that is part of the regular routine at a magazine like The New Republic, there is one type of story that can't be deflated by a fact checker: the kind where the reporter's self-made notes are the only source material against which "fact" can be checked. Glass does these sorts of pieces over and over again, until one day an online-magazine editor shows his reporter a Glass article related to their own venue and asks, "Why didn't YOU get this story?" The reporter, Adam Penenberg, (Steve Zahn, who plays a cool newshound better than most cool newshounds could, stopping just short of the cockiness that would make him unlikeable) is annoyed enough to wonder why, indeed, he didn't get it, and starts digging.
Glass is then in the unenviable position of being buried under his own dirt, but he refuses to come clean. Instead, he blames the whole affair on office politics: he was a favorite of fired TNR editor Mike Kelly (the wondrous Hank Azaria, man of a million faces and voices) and is now hated by the replacement editor (Peter Sarsgaard), whom he accuses of failing to back him when the fictions start hitting the fan. Sarsgaard, as usual, is just perfect as new editor Chuck Lane; he is one of those God-blessed talents who doesn't so much act a role as emanate it, making the word "Hello" clearly mean "I long to touch you" or "I'm going to kill you" with barely the flick of an eyebrow. His straight-arrow Chuck is, in fact, seeking to save his cub/star reporter, even as Christensen's Glass is deftly playing all the levels, amping up the pity factor and badmouthing Chuck to the rest of the staff. But when the facts (or lack thereof) start piling up, Chuck has to confront Glass. And even as he tries repeatedly to give his former colleague an out, Glass spins and spins, embellishing on the spot, dodging, weaving, and (I just loved Christensen's earnest outrage here) even going on the offensive, until Chuck is forced to say that all he wants is the truth: can't Glass just give him that?
Of course, Glass can't. So now it's Chuck who's doing the digging, pitting himself against Glass's loyal supporters. Prominent in this group are Caitlin (Chloe Sevigny, appearing again with Sarsgaard after creating so much magic with him and star Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry"), and Amy (Melanie Lynskey, the underrated co-star of "Heavenly Creatures", who shared a brilliant screen debut with Kate Winslet), expert journalists who nonetheless are more inclined to mother Steve Glass than line-edit him. The showdown between Chuck, Steve, Caitlin, Amy and the rest of the staff isn't one full of guns blazing and blood spurting; it's uglier and subtler than that. It's about ethics versus entertainment, and something that might best be described as hubris, which can overtake us when we think we're better than the truth.
(This movie had an interesting epilogue: after his debacle at The New Republic, the real Stephen Glass published a novel called "The Fabulist". Three guesses as to what it was about. I don't know how the novel did. But Glass's actions only underscored the portrait "Shattered Glass" drew of him. I do not know whether he will be featured in the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary under "gall (unmitigated)", "egoist", or "mendacity", but these are the only places, I hope, where his name will again appear in print. Meanwhile, I congratulate all the rest of the cast of "Shattered Glass", who gave the film the look, feel, and authenticity it needed, aside from its main players, to make it a great film. Their performances were standouts, and I'm sure we'll be seeing all of them again, in bigger and better roles.)
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- Jez FernandezReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2013
Engrossing and thoroughly engaging
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- Steve VealeReviewed in Canada on August 1, 2015
An excellent film about the responsibilities of the media and future ...
