November 23, 2003

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Is it possible to make a movie out of someone like Stephen Glass and not glorify him?

My strongest reaction to seeing “Shattered Glass” yesterday is the desire to read all of his fabricated stories from The New Republic. Seeing as how the magazine has removed those articles from its web archives, and my curiosity isn’t strong enough to fuel a visit to an actual library to read the articles, I have to satisfy myself with reading the transcript of his 60 Minutes interview, a few of his former associates’ takes on his new novel and movie, and his [partially? completely?] fabricated work for Harper’s.

“Shattered Glass” anticipates these impulses, and spends its second half punishing me for having them. For thinking that Peter Sarsgaard’s two-dimensional Chuck Lane really is humorless and self-righteous. And that even if Hayden Christensen’s Stephen Glass is a conniving psychopath, he’s also a clever, self-deprecating wunderkind whose imagination only outstripped his conscience. (And besides, the chap had the decency to provide us with a name divinely outfitted for plays-on-words