Year of Release: 2003
Director: Billy Ray
Starring: Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Zahn, Rosario Dawson, Melanie Lynskey, Hank Azaria, Mark Blum, Simone-Élise Girard, Chad Donella, Jamie Elman, Luke Kirby,
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
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Synopsis and Review
Billy Ray made his name firstly as a screenwriter during the 1990s, having written films such as Richard Rush's "Color of Night", Mick Jackson's "Volcano", and Gregory Hoblit's "Hart's War" (sharing screenwriting credits that is). "Shattered Glass" was his feature directorial debut, of what has been thus far a very solid writing/directing career. The film which takes place in the late 1990s, is based on true facts, follows the story of Stephen Glass, a young journalist, who holds an associate editor role at The New Republic publication. Stephen is well liked by his colleagues and is somewhat sheltered by editor Michael Kelly. However due to internal conflicts, Kelly gets fired, and in his replaced by Charles Lane. Glass writes a story with the title "Hack Heaven", which reaches Forbes Digital Tool. One of the publication's reporters, Adam Penenberg, finds no supporting information/facts to corroborate the story. When trying to contact the individuals mentioned in the story, courtesy of a number Glass has made available, those calls go straight to voicemail. Charles Lane starts suspecting something is suspicious about the story, and as he pokes deeper into the details of the story, he realizes Glass made up all the events and facts that sustain the article. He confronts Glass about the situation, and decides to investigate prior articles he had written, only to realize the falsified facts were something he had equally done with his prior articles.
Feature films focused on journalists have been a staple for decades. In the 1970s they took a qualitatively jump when Alan J. Pakula directed "All the President's Men", which is of course a classic, but since then other films have tackled life on the newsroom, some with a lighter tone such as Ron Howard's "The Paper", and others more dramatic such as Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight", Steven Spielberg's "The Post", and more recently, Maria Schrader's "She Said". "Shattered Glass" is an investigative story, but one that focuses on the integrity of one of the newsroom scribes, and essentially makes this film an analysis on the games of an impostor, who truly embodied the term impostor syndrome. The film deftly captures the relationship of camaraderie and trust between the characters on the newsroom team, simultaneously demonstrating how potent the illusion created by the central character actually was, and the amount of disbelief that occurred when the mountain of lies that had been created started to collapse. It's a testament to the quality of the writer/director that he doesn't demonize the central character, instead showing that character as someone who is crafting this made-up reality where he is an accomplished and trustworthy journalist, one that is being undone by external events, even if he is the one who has manipulated and fabricated most of the stories he had written. While what we get to know of these characters is somewhat limited, there's much to admire of the unfolding of the narrative as the lies become more and more evident. The cast is uniformly great, particularly Hayden Christensen as Stephen Glass, and the always underrated and superb Peter Sarsgaard as Charles Lane, though they all get additional solid support from Chloe Sevigny, Steve Zahn, Melanie Lynskey, and Hank Azaria. The production team is solid, including Mychael Danna's score, Mandy Walker's cinematography, and François Séguin's production design. A solid film worth watching.
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