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HOLLYWOOD PICK:
Cinemagic’s recent screenings of the Star Wars prequels prompted a question from one of my friends: Has Hayden Christensen ever given a good performance? The answer lies in Billy Ray’s Shattered Glass (2003), which stars Christensen as infamous New Republic journalist Stephen Glass.
Most of the movie unfolds in 1998, when Glass was an associate editor at the magazine. As embodied by Christensen, he’s a smug showman who swaggers around the office in his socks, mesmerizing colleagues who envy his lurid articles.
“I want a Miata!” Glass cries, imitating the subject of his latest story, a teenage hacker named Ian Restil. There’s just one problem: Editor Charles Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) doesn’t believe Restil is a real person, and Forbes Digital Tool reporter Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn) is eager to embarrass The New Republic by exposing Glass as a charlatan.
Christensen’s Glass actually has a lot in common with his Anakin Skywalker; they’re both whiny, self-pitying morons. “Are you mad at me?” Glass moans every time someone questions his integrity. It’s an infuriating question, spoken by a grown man who masquerades as a mewling child when it suits him.
As reticent as Christensen is theatrical, Sarsgaard stealthily steals the show, playing Lane as a man whose apparent coldness belies a deep reservoir of integrity. He’ll never outcharm Glass, but he’s the only one at the magazine who understands the depths of his phoniness.
“He handed us fiction after fiction, and we printed them all as fact!” Lane roars when he finally casts off his cloak of stoicism. “Just because we found him entertaining. It’s indefensible.” That scene should be shown in journalism schools around the world—and it’s a reminder that as (shockingly) good as Christensen is, Sarsgaard is better. Free on Amazon Prime, Tubi and YouTube.