When the Jayson Blair story-fabrication scandal broke earlier this year, humiliating the top brass at The New York Times, a few onlookers recalled a similar situation that left the folks at the New Republic red-faced back in 1998. Stephen Glass, a 24-year-old whiz kid who became a rising journalistic star while studying law at night, was exposed as having fabricated more than two dozen stories during his tenure at the hallowed Washington D.C. political mag. Glass disappeared for a few years before returning this summer with a novelization of his story, zippily entitled ‘The Fabulist.’
Now, writer-director Billy Ray gives us Shattered Glass, a dramatization of Glass’ story that supplies genuine tension and a resonant moral ambiguity. Hayden Christensen plays Glass, who delights his editors at first with stories full of ironic human detail. When beloved editor Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria) is fired and controversially replaced with shameless careerist Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard), Glass takes advantage of the staff’s upheaval, allowing his bogus stories to slip through the cracks.
When two reporters at a San Francisco online magazine (Steve Zahn, Rosario Dawson) attempt to follow up on a Glass piece about a teenage hacker who outsmarted a deep-pocketed software company, they begin to see that nearly every character, scenario and fact in the story is a sham the software company doesn’t even exist. Lane, conscious of his vulnerability in leading a staff that likes Glass better than they like him, initially treads carefully, but as the facts pile up, the stage is set for a showdown between writer and editor.
Ray creates a palpable sense of undertow as Lane gradually unravels the truth about Glass’ work. The film’s portrayal of competition between editors and the casually chaotic, occasionally cutthroat atmosphere of a magazine office feels authentic. Sarsgaard is terrific as Lane, who sees the opportunity to take control of his magazine and rises to it. Chloe Sevigny impresses as a colleague who doggedly defends Glass. Christensen’s portrayal of Glass is eerily recognizable. The film doesn’t knock itself out trying to psychologize or explain away Glass’ compulsion to spin yarns under the guise of creating news. In Christensen’s hands, Glass merely comes off as a shallow, desperate-to-please twerp, the kind who’s always brown-nosing superiors and doing extra work just to gild his own image, not because he cares about what he does. Watching him get his in the end is satisfying indeed.
This review ran in the Sept. 11, 2003 issue of the Muse as part of Boston Film Festival coverage.
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