Shattered Glass

Journalists can be lazy. But there’s a fine line between fudging a few pesky points of fact and pulling a “New York Times.” (At least, that’s what we tell our bosses.) Still, some writers will do anything for a byline in a major publication, until they stretch all of the truth out of a story and the shit hits the printer. Shattered Glass tracks the short-lived career of Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen), a promising but unbearably arrogant writer at the well-respected New Republic. Glass cracks up colleagues with his perceived brilliance until one of his stories comes up riddled with holes in the source, location, and event itself. (Lousy, nitpicking editors.) We know watching a newsroom drama unfold sounds as appealing as a Wolf Blitzer body massage, but Shattered Glass briskly unravels a young punk’s promising career for your viewing pleasure. Christensen hands over his lightsaber and ponytail for a pen and a pad as the shady twentysomething on the brink of a breakdown, with close-ups of sweating brows, shifting eyes, and frantic e-mail exchanges. (Eat that, Revolutions!) Even though we all know how this true story ends, it twists up enough tension to make it worth a second, dramatized look. For all you young scribes at home, let this serve as a lesson.*

*Parts of this review were “borrowed” from The Christian Science Monitor.