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Breaking Stories,
Breaking Glass
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Shattered
Glass
Billy Ray, USA, 2003
Rating: 4.1
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Posted: November 30,
2003
By
Kevin Forest Moreau
Many if not most viewers will no doubt settle into their seats for
Shattered Glass musing on the film's timeliness, coming as it does in
the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal that rocked The New York Times
earlier this year. The temptation to draw parallels between the two
incidents is irresistible, but screenwriter Billy Ray's directorial debut
resonates on a human level above and beyond the synchronicity of its timing.
Given his tactless self-aggrandizing in the media, Blair isn't likely to be
viewed with sympathy by very many observers. But in Glass, Ray manages
to make us like the sinner, even as we abhor his sin.
Of course, Ray doesn't do all the work. As Stephen Glass, the ambitious
young writer for The New Republic, Hayden Christensen pulls off the
near-impossible: He makes Glass's pulsing undercurrent of neediness,
manifested as a particular admixture of humility and "Please like me"
boastfulness familiar to anyone who's ever tried to impress a superior, as
ingratiating as it is unsettling. Christensen's acting is a revelation,
following his wooden line readings in
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the
Clones and his sullen screeching in
Life as a House. As Glass,
Christensen retains a bit of his natural stiffness, but he makes it work:
Stephen's hesitant, passive-aggressive nature feeds our understanding of his
character, which makes his fictions not only understandable but in a sense
inevitable. When he continually asks co-workers "Are you mad at me?," we get
a glimpse into the factors that motivate his solicitous personality.
Shattered Glass traces the series of events that led to Glass's ouster
from The New Republic, focusing primarily on a particular story about
a nonexistent hacker hired as a security consultant for the nonexistent
company whose computers he's been attacking. Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn,
ably atoning for such sins as Saving Silverman), a writer for an
online Forbes publication, sets out to do a follow-up piece, only to run
into a troubling obstacle -- he can find no record of the hacker, his agent
or the company itself. Penenberg and his editor confront Glass and New
Republic editor Chuck Lane, and as Glass constructs a flimsy support
system of lies -- fabricated notes, phone numbers and business cards, even a
laughably fake company website -- the tension builds to an almost unbearable
level. (A discrepancy in the Republic's laborious fact-checking
system, it's explained, is that a writer's notes are taken on their word, a
system that allowed Glass to invent subjects without much fear of a
colleague calling them to confirm facts.)
The slow but steady disintegration of Glass's tissue-thin story is painful
to watch, unencumbered by hammy, scenery-chewing confrontations or bombastic
musical cues. Ray doesn't bog us down in subplots or apologies for Stephen's
behavior; early on, he admits to his concerned colleague Caitlin (Chloe
Sevigny) that he's under pressure from his wealthy parents to pursue a
career in law, which explains his enrollment in night courses (which take a
heavy toll) but thankfully isn't presented as an easy excuse for his
fabricating, in whole or in part, a large number of articles presented as
fact.
But Ray's matter-of-fact docudrama approach isn't completely objective,
which considering the subject matter proves quite fitting (in the real
world, journalists aren't completely objective, either). To the extent that
it follows anyone outside of the magazine, the film gives us brief glimpses
of Lane's home life. This small but essential touch balances the editor's
rough edges when he coldly and impersonally lays bare Stephen's lies and
eventually fires him. Peter Sarsgaard does a nimble job as Lane, showing us
the pressure he works under, especially in regards to his unenviable task of
following fired (and much-beloved) editor Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria,
exuding a paternal, regular-guy charm).
It's to Ray's credit that his film resists either demonizing Glass or
painting him as a blameless victim. Scenes in which Stephen's colleague Amy
(a great, underused Melanie Lynskey) admits to coveting the attention Glass
receives as a rising star, and in which Glass imagines talking to his
adoring high school teacher's equally adoring journalism class, spell out
for us the temptations of acclaim that drive Glass to such desperate
measures. The film does leave some questions naggingly unanswered: Since
computer hacking is illegal, why does no one ever question Glass's claim
that he attended a hackers' convention? How is Glass able to spend so much
time fabricating stories -- don't they hand out, you know, assignments
at The New Republic? But Shattered Glass ignores these minor
speed bumps, gathering momentum in its suspenseful unraveling of its
subject's audacious inventions.
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