“Shattered Glass” is a 2003 dramatic history movie based on the true story of Stephen Glass. Stephen was a reporter for the magazine “The New Republic”. “There are sixteen thousand eight hundred magazines in this country but only one calls itself the inflight magazine for Air Force One, that's the thrill of working at The New Republic, you're under paid the hours are brutal but what you write gets read by people who matter, presidents, law makers your work can actually influence public policy that's an amazing privilege and a huge responsibility”. (Shattered Glass) Working for a magazine as important and esteemed as “The New Republic” comes with some expectations, that what you write is interesting, up to date, without grammatical error, and most importantly true. Stephen Glass’s stories had all of these factors except one, truth. Out of 41 of Stephen’s published stories, 27 of those were either completely or partially made up.
The movie follows Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) and his editor, Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) as “The New Republic’s” credibility is challenged by Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), a writer at “Forbes”.
This movie was very different than anything I have seen before. Maybe that is because it is not the type of movie I would usually flock toward, as my favorite movie is “What We Do in the Shadows”, a vampire mockumentary, which has little in common with “Shattered Glass”. Though “Shattered Glass” isn’t a movie I would have ever picked to watch on my own, I am so glad I did. I found myself, even at the more “boring parts”, still intrigued in the story line. I didn’t want to miss anything. The story itself is so interesting. The way we could see what a high risk it was for Glass to be lying like that. I couldn’t believe that this was based on a true story, that this really happened. It seemed like another made up Hollywood movie. I liked that though, because as I reminded myself that the movie really happened it seemed more important and you could really feel for the “characters” because they actually had to go through this.
The acting in this movie was brilliant. Let’s start with the lead in Shattered Glass, Hayden Christensen, who played Stephen Glass. Hayden did amazing. Glass was a likeable charismatic guy. From the very beginning I felt that if I was there, Stephen Glass and I would have been great friends. That likably for me stayed even when all of Stephen's lies were discovered. I knew that logically and from the stand point of his editor, Stephen should be fired and never able to write for such a professional magazine again, but from an emotional point, from a point of watching him struggle with his lies and seeing his likability, I wanted him to keep writing. I felt so bad for Stephen when his story was being fact checked and questioned. I wanted so bad for Adam Penenberg (Steven Zahn) to stop investigating the story. I wanted Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) to believe Stephen and not look into it any further. Hayden’s work portraying Stephen Glass was beyond what I expected, and he well deserved the Las Plamas Film Festival award for Best Actor (Tied with Peter Sarsgaard) and his nominee for the Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama for the Seattle Film Critics' Awards.
Peter Sarsgaard who played the editor of “The New Republic”, Chuck Lane, was also played brilliantly. Throughout the whole movie as Chuck was dealing with the scandal surrounding his magazines credibility, you could see so many sides of Chuck, he had a family that needed to be taken care of, he had a major magazine to look over, and now this impending doom of what will happen to his magazine after word gets out that stories are fabricated. We also see the struggle of what to do with Stephen. You can see that Chuck struggles with wanting to believe Stephen and needing to do what is right for his magazine. I really liked how Peter Sarsgaard was able to put all these factors in when creating his portrayal of Chuck. It’s amazing to be able to see all these sides of one person. I'm not the only one who noticed his efforts as Peter Sarsgaard was also nominated and the winner of many awards. He won 8 awards and in total was nominated for 20 different awards for his role of Chuck Lane. Though Chuck wasn’t one of the more likable characters for me, it doesn’t change the fact that he was played fantastically.
Lastly another notable figure in this movie is the discoverer of Stephen’s lies, Adam Penenberg, played by Steve Zahn. I know that I recognized Steve Zahn from somewhere and after pausing the movie because I NEEDED to know where I recognized him from, I find that I knew Steve Zahn from his time playing Frank Heffley in the first three “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movies. While watching the movie I couldn’t unsee him as Frank Heffley. I do think that Steve did a good job in playing a reporter getting to the bottom of Stephen’s lie, but I don’t think that he was especially amazing. I don’t think it was the actor's fault though. As a character we didn’t get to see much in Adam’s life aside from his encounters with Stephen’s article. I wish we did though. I would have loved to see why figuring out the truth about Stephen’s story mattered so much to him personally. I wish we could have seen more of his late nights at the office and his risks with spending so much time and effort on this story.
My final thoughts on “Shattered Glass” is that it was a very well-done movie. From the way it was filmed, the way it was written, and the way it was acted. It had me thinking long after the movie was over. It also had me emotionally invested in the characters and story. I think that everyone should watch this movie, give it a chance. You never know, it may become a new favorite. You can rent this movie on Amazon or watch it free with an HBO Go subscription.
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