Shattered Glass | Review

Film gives a new meaning to the notion of ‘creative writing’.

In film, troubled kids are usually represented as skateboard generation with beefs against authority figures. Here, the focus of the film is about a soul who was admired for his brilliant talents of spinning a story, but unfortunately for him, there is a difference between Penthouse forum and a paper called the New Republic.

While mentioning this film in the same breath as All the President’s Men is perhaps the greatest compliment for Billy Ray’s directorial debut, not only does it comparatively evoke a true sense of the red ink and print world of journalism, but it demonstrates how fact-checking a story or a person’s background can sometimes lead to uncovering one or more discrepancies. While Stephen Glass is no Richard Nixon, both of these men share a common trait, they were confused people in trustworthy positions.

Shattered Glass is not only a great title for the film, but it is the type of film project that doesn’t try to be something that it isn’t. Instead of forcing the tone of the picture with an upward incline, Ray sticks to the facts and doesn’t drift away from the magnitude of the story giving the viewer a compellingly, but yet, standard low profile type of picture.

While some of the staffers’ biggest concerns are about misplaced commas and proper syntax, this bright, confused boy in a position of responsibility learns to blend the lines between fact and fiction apparently unaware of the consequences that may follow. Trading in his light saber for a notepad and pen is actor Hayden Christensen (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones) whose charisma, tall stories and buttoned-down blue shirts cover more than just a sweaty forehead but it helps the young man buy enough time to keep his story intriguing enough to make me want to pay a full fair. All apologies ensue once the facts are verified; our Pinocchio manages to make it safe on base that is until the story becomes bigger than itself.

Ray peddles a story of his own, providing visuals to a couple of the fabricated accounts, thus enforcing the power of the told lies. Though Christensen’s narration sounds a little weak, he gives the character a great look. The remaining cast of familiar faces are a believable ensemble, especially with Peter Sarsgaard (The Salton Sea) as Chuck Lane, the unliked, but determined replacement editor who shares some intense exchanges with the film’s protagonist which reveal the layers of one distraught protagonist. Steve Zahn (Joy Ride) as Penenberg the reporter who blew the other reporter’s cover doesn’t appear for more than ten minutes, but his subdued performance is actually a plus for the film, and Chloe Sevigny (Dogville) seems to be always a plus in a film, here she portrays a concerned friend.

What we have in Shattered Glass is 90 minutes that give us a remarkable event that is not all that uncommon these days. The Montreal-filmed production hits the bull’s-eye without trying to win the viewer over and without over staging the events or character dramatizations.

Rating 3 stars