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Shattered Glass (2003)

Rate: 8
Viewed: 4/24

SGlass
4/24: I never heard of the magazine, The New Republic, or the disgraced writer, Stephen Glass, until I saw Shattered Glass.

"The true story that shocked the nation"? Yeah, sure. Then, why did it gross a bit more than $2 million against a budget of $6 million? The answer is: it's awash in pretentiousness. Even Stephen Glass' book The Fabulist was a commercial failure, having sold 5,000 copies in 2014. Hence, the film is hard to care about although the second half is strong by getting to the core with shades of All the President's Men.

Reserved for the top 0.1% of the population, the subject matter isn't interesting. Although the character is an outlier, the pathological liar that he is, the truth is all news media have lost credibility many years ago. When one, especially in school, asks, "What are some of the credible news sources?", the joke is on him because the correct answer is: there isn't any. Money shapes news; that's why you don't hear anything bad about top companies because they control the advertising dollars.

You can think of The New York Times, The Washington Post (which is owned by Amazon in what's the biggest conflict of interest there is), Rolling Stone, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, among others. They've been making up crap left and right such as Jayson Blair and the UVA rape case. If not that, then they're withholding the truth from the public because if they did report it, their access such as the White House would be lost for good. Thus, U.S. President Joe Biden has been getting away with whatever for so long despite his obvious senility and criminal history.

Back to the film, the cast is strong, but it's Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard who stand out the most. The former is like a ten-year-old mother's boy who won't grow up while the latter is calm and patient about the situation by getting the full details first before making a decision. If there's any indication of extreme guilt, it's Hayden Christensen's body language in terms of his face becoming beet red while sweating so much. Hence, it's a surprise that his character didn't kill the editor.

All in all, Shattered Glass is a well-done film about journalism ethics, but don't be fooled: it's been going on for a long, long time and is widely practiced by virtually every news media in the United States.