'Shattered Glass' shatters smiles

In his directorial debut, B-list screenwriter Billy Ray ("Hart's War") has catapulted himself into the realm of serious cinema. "Shattered Glass" tells the fascinating and disturbing story of the fall from grace of Stephen Glass, a young hotshot reporter for "The New Republic" and other prominent national magazines.

As well as being deeply intriguing, the story has important moral implications and attacks the value of relationships based entirely on trust and loyalty. However, its moral power and intrigue are deeply hindered by weak and over-simplistic screenwriting, mediocre acting, and an immature directorial style.

Over all, "Shattered Glass" entertains, disturbs and provokes thought, but ultimately fails to be great art.

The story guides us through Glass's glory days and the eventual discovery of his fraudulent reporting via a speech he gives to an impressionable and admiring class of high school students.

Glass (Hayden Christensen of "Star Wars: Episode II") is an enthusiastic, sycophantic and overly charming young reporter, rising rapidly in the upper-echelons of journalism at the age of 24.

A brilliant politician, Glass manipulates his friends and superiors to build unquestioned loyalty and affection. But when questions begin to surface concerning the verity of this latest and greatest scoop, "Hack Heaven," Glass finds that the widespread fabrications he used to spice up his articles are returning to haunt him.

The overwhelming feeling one gets from "Shattered Glass" is that of disillusionment. Christensen's innocent good looks and Glass's sweetly dorky and innocent character draw us in. We know, before the movie begins, that this trap is intentional. We are quickly repulsed at the very attraction we were so sure we had to Glass at the beginning.

Yet the certainty of the fall does not preclude the certainty of the creation of our affections for this fascinating and unusual young man. The moral message that emerges from this process is less a condemnation of Glass, who we never fully understand, than of those whose unquestioning gullibility supported his deceit.

Loyalty is a strange and oft-abused moral value. Loyalty, as a value in and of itself, is key in maintaining political structures and social groups. Yet it can often lead to disregard by individuals for other, more fundamental values; loyalty is often a justification for extreme nationalism in the political realm and dishonesty in the personal realm, as we see so poignantly in this film.

However, criticism of overly generous trust and loyalty is certainly not a new theme in film; "trust no one" is a refrain at least as old as the film noire genre.

The true virtue of "Shattered Glass" is the sheer intrigue and bizarreness of the story. Its setting in the fast paced world of policy-oriented writing will further enthrall many Princeton students. Most surprising is how realistic many of Glass's fabrications were; his description of the national CPAC conference is, while factually incorrect, absolutely in keeping with what I have observed in my four years of attendance.

However, despite its intrigue, "Shattered Glass" suffers deep flaws. The entire film, from screenplay to execution, is contrived and deeply over-stylized.

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The screenplay, like Glass's stories, is plotted in an over-perfected and exploitative manner. Dialogue shows little emotional range. The acting is consistently mediocre or worse and at some points becomes bad enough to actually break up the flow of the story.

Worst of all, Glass's character is totally underdeveloped as a person: we fail to understand his motivation, his history, his thoughts, his desires and his dreams. Rather, we are appalled at his actions and attracted by his demeanor, yet never get inside of his mind.

Threads are left loose throughout the story, as well. Relationships in scenes seem to have an important basis in a back-story we are denied access to within the film. In the end, these flaws undermine the film's ability to leave a dent on the audience after the initial shock and disgust wear off.

Don't go watch "Shattered Glass" if you hope to leave on an upbeat note or have to get to sleep early that night. The film will, without a doubt, leave a bad taste in your mouth and a cynical furrow in your brow.

But this picture may cause you to wonder exactly what you can really take away from it and who Stephen Glass really is, not because it is intentionally subtle and ambiguous, but just because the screenwriter/director is an inexperienced storyteller. Despite this, the film is very intriguing and is worth seeing if you get a chance over break, now that it has left the Princeton Garden Theatres, where it played for the last two weeks.