Hit rock bottom with Glass

Stephen Glass is the original Jayson Blair. He became a writer for The New Republic at the tender age of twenty-four and while employed there he partially or fully fabricated twenty-seven out of forty-one stories until he was caught in 1998. Shattered Glass tells the story of his downfall in thorough detail, tracking Glass, his editors, fellow writers and a reporter at Forbes Digital who eventually broke the story about Glass' transgressions and made them national news.

An article about a hacker convention in Bethesda, Md. finally did Glass in. Glass claimed he'd interviewed a fifteen year old kid who hacked the Web site of a major electronic company and landed himself a job as their security advisor. So said Glass, the boy had an agent and haggled the company for a Mazda Miata, a trip to Disney World and a lifetime subscription to Playboy magazine.

But none of it was true. Self-serving, manipulative and utterly amoral, Glass invented everything in the hopes of gaining a reputation as a young hot shot. And for the most part he succeeded, until Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), the reporter for Forbes Digital, checked a few nagging inconsistencies in Glass' work.

Glass is played by Hayden Christensen, who proves he can give a smart, convincing performance in the hands of a good director. As he lies through his pearly white teeth, cuteness and charm are his MO. And while he's the titular persona and the film's protagonist, he isn't the hero by any means. That role is taken by Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard), the New Republic editor who sees through Glass' manipulations and fired him, all while Glass' charmed coworkers accused Lane of being biased.

The director, Billy Ray, achieves an almost uncomfortable realism by making his direction completely invisible. Through phone conversations, editorial meetings, and office parties, the camera only serves to illustrate the script, and it's for the best: the resultant feeling is a complete voyeuristic thrill. The film's only visually intriguing moment is a shot a year's worth of New Republic issues displayed side-by-side on the office wall. As Lane removes the issues tainted with his lies, The New Republic's unblemished face becomes riddles with holes. The visual metaphor works well, adding a satisfying last minute flourish to Ray's otherwise inconspicuous direction.

The Glass scandal represents the conflict between tried-and-true journalism and the flashy, provocative stories of the younger generation of reporters. The implication is that profit-driven publications are printing what sells, but not necessarily what's true. Sarsgaard, who's Lane is logical, stoic, and always accountable, represents journalistic professionalism. Christensen's Glass, unscrupulous and unashamed, is the perfect embodiment of a society that considers fame, money, and power its primary goals.

Glass lacks a character arc, except for what's portrayed in the escalating extremes of his lies. Although watching him sink deeper and deeper into corruption is fully engaging, even exciting, the story can feel monotonous -- his path is a straight line downward. We all know he's going to be caught, and the script, fundamentally a procedural drama, shows little more than how that eventuality comes about. For this reason, Shattered Glass could have been a TV movie, but it would have been one for the ages.

Still, I'm not sure what I was expecting. After all, it's not like the real Stephen Glass, who capitalized off his misdeeds by publishing a novel based on his experiences, underwent any significant character changes. And considering the nature of the story, I can't blame Ray for sticking to the facts.

Yet, when an audience knows how a story will end before they walk into the theater, as was the case with Pinter's Betrayal or Van Sant's Elephant, much of the movie's power comes from a lingering sense of dread -- the impending disaster hangs over the characters' heads, and every happy moment is bittersweet because we know what's coming.