SHATTERED GLASS Rating: (out of 5 stars) Director: Billy Ray Producers: Craig Baumgarten, Adam Merims, Gaye Hirsch, Tove Christensen Writer: Billy Ray; based on an article by Buzz Bissinger Director of Photography: Mandy Walker, A.C.S. Cast: Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria, Chloe Sevigny, Melanie Lynskey, Steve Zahn, Rosario Dawson, Cas Anvar Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

Comment on the message boards.

Review by: Warren Curry
10/27/03

A character study told as an intense thriller, writer/director Billy Ray's Shattered Glass manages to succeed on both levels thanks to the filmmaker's ability to balance the complexities of the people he's analyzing with a flair for swift, exciting storytelling. Based on Buzz Bissinger's Vanity Fair article about disgraced journalist Stephen Glass (a less celebrated version of the New York Times' Jayson Blair), Ray's film sparks in a way that manages to respect the world it's set in while clearly putting an emphasis on the dramatic. It's an often wild ride that tells its tale with integrity and intelligence securely intact.

Set in the mid/late '90s, Hayden Christensen (that villain of a galaxy far, far away) plays highly sought-after journalist Stephen Glass. Glass is a writer for the respected Washington D.C.-based current events magazine, The New Republic, a publication whose staff is largely comprised of people under the age of 30. A quick-witted, charming young man, Glass constantly woos his co-workers with exhilarating story pitches delivered at staff meetings. However, the majority of the stories that Glass pounds out are either partially or completely fabricated. Being the apple of his loyal editor's, Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria), eye, Glass's falsified concoctions sneak past the magazine's fact checkers and get the young journo freelance assignments for Rolling Stone and Harper's.

That is until Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), a writer for the online magazine Forbes Digital, catches wind of Glass's story entitled "Hack Heaven," allegedly about a teenage computer hacker who manages to strike a lucrative deal working for a software company that he had attacked. When Penenberg begins to unravel the truth (or lack thereof) behind the story, the pressure comes down hard and heavy on Glass. By this time, Kelly has been fired, and his post is taken over by the much less forgiving Charles Lane (Peter Sarsgaard), whose foremost priority is to uphold the reputation of The New Republic.

In the end, it was uncovered that 27 of the 41 articles that Glass penned for The New Republic contained fabrications. As played by Christensen, Glass is a Grade A ass kisser, whose devious behavior is matched only by his imagination and talent. Glass seems harmless enough, but there's something about him you don't quite trust or respect. His willingness to so spinelessly whimper when fearing reprimand from his superiors ("Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?" is his constant refrain) is aggravatingly childlike.

But in the universe of The New Republic, a magazine stocked with wunderkind writers, it's not hard to imagine how or why a Stephen Glass was created (although the environment is seen as much more supportive than competitive). A product of an upper class family who wanted their son to pursue a career with a more lucrative payoff, one can imagine that Glass's win-at-all-costs philosophy had been cultivated at an early age. And the lengths that Glass goes to in order to protect the credibility of his stories is astounding. His determination, if nothing else, is certainly admirable.

Glass is a fascinating character, and so is Charles Lane, who by virtue of wanting to do the right thing -- in the name of his magazine and his profession -- becomes Glass's adversary. Replacing the popular Kelly, who was dismissed under less-than-perfect circumstances, Lane enters the job with the odds stacked against him; to then target the magazine's most popular writer only serves as another way to alienate those around him. Billy Ray seamlessly expands the film's focus from at first being strictly on Glass to eventually encompass both Glass and Lane.

At times, it's difficult to believe Christensen's performance as Glass. The writer has the ambitions of an adult but the personality of a nerdy, overachieving high school student. This could be an authentic performance, and at the very least it is a serviceable one, but a few too many times you're left to wonder what sort of liberties the filmmakers took with the character. Sarsgaard, however, takes the film and runs with it when the spotlight falls on his character. There's an intensity that builds so believably, but is skillfully contained, especially in scenes when he's asked to unleash his anger and frustration. Sarsgaard's performance is right up there with the best I've seen this year.

As Shattered Glass reminds us, the truth can be harder to obtain than most would imagine. With more information options available than ever, the importance of questioning one's sources can never be overstated. Billy Ray wraps up that warning in a charged movie that consistently offers up a welcome barrage of surprisingly stirring twists and turns.

(A Lions Gate release. Opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 31, 2003. Expands to more cities at later dates.)