MOVIE REVIEW 'Shattered Glass' portrays true story with strong acting

The writer-director made a crackerjack investigative thriller out of this tragedy.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
If your only previous exposure to Hayden Christensen was his wooden performance as the young Anakin Skywalker in "The Phantom Menace," Christensen's powerful dramatic turn in "Shattered Glass" will probably seem like a revelation.
Of course, anyone lucky enough to have seen Christensen as Kevin Kline's troubled teenage son in 2001's "My Life as a House" already knows what the 22-year-old Canadian actor is capable of when he's not working for George Lucas.
As Stephen Glass, the New Republic writer whose promising journalistic career was torpedoed after it was learned that he'd fabricated 27 of 41 articles, Christensen is utterly riveting. Boyishly charming in a nerdy sort of way, the bespectacled Glass ingratiates himself to his co-workers like a pound puppy in search of a new home. Still a bit of a momma's boy, Glass has no social life to speak of and even attends law school at night to appease his folks.
Glass is adored by editor Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria) who can't see behind his star reporter's eager smile and fawning behavior. But when Kelly is replaced by Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard in a terrific supporting turn), his new boss instantly suspects that not everything is what it appears to be with go-getter Glass.
Toppling down
Everything comes toppling down after the magazine publishes "Hack Heaven," Glass' piece about a reputed teen computer hacker. A competing magazine, still bummed about being scooped, starts doing a little investigating of its own and quickly discovers that the story just doesn't add up. Soon, Lane is all over Glass to 'fess up and admit fudging facts. By this time, his serial deceptions had already reached near-epidemic proportions.
Anyone with a vested interest in journalistic integrity will tell you that what Glass did was both reprehensible and a discredit to his profession. The fact that Glass was eventually caught -- trapped by his own web of half-truths and downright lies -- doesn't make this appalling yarn any easier to digest.
Profound performance
Amazingly, writer-director Billy Ray has somehow managed to make a crackerjack investigative thriller out of this profoundly depressing tragedy. It's the best film of its kind since "All the President's Men," although I doubt whether anyone will ever confuse a pariah like Stephen Glass with Woodward and Bernstein.
Abandoning all traces of vanity, Christensen burrows so deeply into character that he just about disappears inside his role. This is screen acting at its finest. While Ray's script never tries to justify Glass' behavior or even explain what compelled him to invent stories out of thin air, Christensen's incisive portrayal tells us all we need to know about the man. Ultimately more of a cautionary tale than a conventional biography, "Shattered Glass" is one of the most sobering and thought-provoking movies released this year.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.