Review: Film fails to shatter glass

Pete Flores
Published: Thursday, October 30, 2003

Before Jayson Blair plagiarized quotes and fabricated material in his articles for The New York Times, there was Stephen Glass.

Glass was an ambitious journalist who fabricated events in his articles to achieve success at various publications, earning large sums of money and a reputation for always writing the perfect story.

Although the story of Stephen Glass has all the makings for a great Hollywood film, “Shattered Glass” is content on being simply a re-creation of the events leading to Glass’ demise. As a result, the movie plays more like a news segment than a narrative film.

Glass’ ambition mirrored his own neuroticism and desire for companionship. His success in journalism attracted attention to his personal life and became the medication to fill his inner void.

“I wanted them to think I was a good journalist … a good person,” said Glass in an interview for “60 Minutes” earlier this year. “I wanted them to love the story, so they would love me.”

But these character flaws within Glass are never fully developed in the film. We only see an obnoxious 25-year-old writer, played by Hayden Christensen, that got caught trying to cheat the system. The pain and emptiness which compel Glass to plagiarize are never made self-evident, and as a result, the film suffers.

Instead of challenging himself and the film, writer/director Billy Ray relies on a straightforward approach that minimizes all of his characters to one dimension. Ray seems more concerned with keeping the brisk running time under 100 minutes rather than focusing on the depiction of his main characters.

While the character of Glass provides Christensen with his first leading role, it does not allow him to break away from the whiny brats we’ve seen him portray in the past. Christensen, like everything else in this film, is straightforward in his portrayal, and whether Christensen is the actor George Lucas believes he is remains unresolved.

Regardless of Christensen’s performance, “Shattered Glass” is burdened by its own simplicity. Without any true characterization, the film loses the immediacy and ardor that imbued other journalistic films like “The Insider” and “All the President’s Men,” and thus joins the ever increasing list of mediocre films based on real events.

– Pete Flores