Shattered Glass

The New Republic is a magazine so prestigious it could claim to be the 'In-Flight Magazine of Air Force One', both by its writers boastfully and rival magazines fearfully. At the age of 24, Stephen Glass (Christensen) is the magazine's youngest and most successful writer. We see that he is wise beyond his years, giving advice to school kids about the trade ("Journalism is the art of capturing behaviour"); hunting down stories about how a teenage hacker brought a company to its knees; getting the affection of all his colleagues and when he screws up, getting away with the line, "Are you mad at me?"

Then The New Republic's newest editor, Chuck Lane (Sarsgaard), starts investigating reports that one of Glass' stories doesn't hold water, and the deeper he digs the more it looks like Glass made up most of his articles. Suddenly Lane has to decide whether he should fire Glass or not, and risk losing the loyalty of the entire office, who are very protective of him.

This is a true story and Stephen Glass does exist; as the end credits begin we learn that he later graduated from law school and now lives in New York. The question is, how did a young writer manage to con a world-class publication, when, as one sequence explains, an article has to be filtered through fact-checkers, 3 times?

The premise might not seem very interesting for those of you not considering a career in journalism, but I can assure you it is a movie everyone will enjoy. The writer-director has fashioned a very tense and gripping drama out of what could potentially be a very talkie film.

All of the actors play their roles well; Hayden Christensen nailed Glass' adolescent nervousness perfectly; Peter Sarsgaard played Chuck Lane so well that this obscure actor garnered a Golden Globe nomination. In one of the best sequences of the film, you see Lane trying his best to pin down inconsistencies in Glass's story while Glass tries desperately to wriggle his way out, and you're not entirely sure who to root for.

Of course, I could have made all this up. It is up to you, the audience, to fact-check it.

Sebastian Ng