Shattered Glass

Year of release : 2003

Run time : 1h34m

Genre : Biographical Drama

Cast : Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Hank Azaria, Rosario Dawson, Steve Zahn

The movie was written and directed by Billy Ray, and it’s based on the same titled 1998 Vanity Fair article by H. G. Bissinger.

The year is 1998, and Stephen Glass is at his former school, where he is presented by his former teacher as contributing writer for Harper’s Magazine, George Magazine and Rolling Stone, and associate editor for The New Republic Magazine. The New Republic Magazine is considered the magazine of Air Force One.

Stephen tells the students about an article he wrote about the Conservative Convention and how important it is to get everything right.

Speaking of which, his editor tells him he’s been contacted by someone telling him the article is not correct, as the hotel he put in his story doesn’t have a mini bar. When confronted, Stephen admits it might have been a rented mini fridge. His editor calls the place and asks them if they allow clients to rent mini fridges. The answer is No.

Stephen seems to be good friends with most of his colleagues, especially the women whom he is always complimenting. He is usually asking his 2 colleagues, Caitlin and Amy, to fix his articles.

When he throws a party, it’s shown how he remembers what his friends say, and acts accordingly, to make them feel good.

Caitlin finds his law school envelope and asks him why does he want to study law, when he’s such a good writer. Stephen tells her his parents make him do it, and that if he doesn’t, they won’t let him work for the magazine. Caitlin points out they don’t have to let him do anything, he’s 24 years old.

At the meetings about what’s gonna be published in the magazine, Stephen always has the best stories, to the point his colleagues even say how does he even manage to find such good pieces! He entertains them all with stories about how he pretended to be a behavioral psychologist calling radio stations to talk about his specialty, human on human biting. I can’t believe people believed his stories, like WTF?!

The publisher, Marty Peretz, fires the editor who kept on fighting with him about giving the writers ridiculous assignments like circling the commas in the last issue of the magazine.

Stephen admired Michael Kelly, the editor, because he stood up for his writers.

Peretz fires Kelly, and gives the job to Chuck Lane. Chuck is hesitant in accepting it, as he says the staff is very loyal to Kelly.

Stephen bad moths Chuck to their peers, but then acts like he’s his friend when alone.

After writing 14 articles under Chuck, Stephen pitches his new story, about hackers, to the whole staff. They all love it.

At Forbes Digital Tool, Adam Penenberg is asked by his superior how come he couldn’t write that article.

Adam starts looking up all the names and places in the story. And finds neither of them exist.

I personally liked the movie.

Stephen’s stories are ridiculous, I can’t believe his colleagues believed them. I also don’t understand how could he get away with it, they keep on talking about fact checking, but they didn’t fact check anything about his stories. I mean, he wrote about a National Hackers Conference! I had to research this, as I though there’s no way hackers have meetings, but apparently they do!

Everything he wrote about, he didn’t even bother to go to the places he said the events took place, to see what they look like, and if they had the items he wrote about , or if they’d be able to host big parties.

When Stephen is confronted about what he wrote and said to people (as every time he is asked about it he comes up with new lies), he never backs down on his stories, he never admits he lied, he actually gets upset people don’t believe him and plays the victim!

He keeps telling people how important it is to fact check, and write the truth, but he never does that.

Everybody is looking up to Stephen, as he has the best stories, and Amy is striving to be like him.

The acting was good, but I didn’t find amazing, like the critics have said.

I didn’t like the soundtrack.

The movie was produced by Tom Cruise and his agent, Paula Wagner.

The movie has ratings in the 70% on Metacritic, and between 79% and 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. IMDB graded it a 7.1.

The movie grossed only 2.9 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 6 million dollars.

The movie was nominated for quite a few awards (winning half of them), including for a Golden Globe for Peter Sarsgaard.

Rating : Worth a watch !