Shattered Glass

Lions Gate Films | Release Date: October 31, 2003

7.7	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Ratings

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DoehlMar 25, 2012

The film is flashy, but the filmmakers are not getting inside their character's brain at all and rather focus more on the dull procedures of editing in corporate magazines.

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DawdlingPoetNov 27, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. First off, as a movie, particularly as its a true story, its all about just that, the story. There's no real visual effects or anything along those lines to keep you watching, instead its the character of Stephen Glass that the movie is focussed on, him and the reaction of those around him, both as loyal colleagues and competitors in his profession, who slowly become aware of inconsistencies to his latest story, although the ultimate extent of this is whats probably most shocking.

I found it interesting watching the reacion of his colleagues at the paper, as they discussed what may happen to him - the comeraderie and loyalty they showed towards him and later on we also see that there was some hesitation shown by the paper, not by Stephens direct boss but by management who were quite cautious about outrightly firing him for fear that this would spark resignations by others and could lead to the downfall of the paper - again this may make you wonder what goes on, what information people may be sitting on - as far as the papers may be concerned, all that matters is that they have a successful business in terms of units sold and profits earned - the way thats suggested to deal with Stephens fabrication(s) being essentially a case of a harsh telling off and lost income for a fair amount of time but no real loss of career. Having said this, if this seems like a spoiler it isn't entirely as this isn't what the ultimate outcome is for?.

Its interesting to see some of the tactics used as people look into the validity of his story which led to obviously action being taken - there's one scene involving multiple journalists repeatedly phoning a number supposedly belonging to the software company that the report in question centres on - considering it had been established through multiple searches online and phoning up phone directory services that the company didn't seem to exist, it was taken with great scepticism that said number was genuine, so they phone in such a way to try and determine whether or not the recipient has multiple phone lines (which is an indication as to whether its a genuine business phone number or not). As the movie winds down, we see Stephens demeanour change, whereas before he was clearly quite comfortable with what he'd done, quite in control thus he didn't seem too worried about being found out but as things unwind, he tries to maintain the same persona but he clearly has to work harder behind the scenes.

Equally there's another interesting reaction by the paper who order staff to double, no triple or even quadruple (I forget which) check every single report for grammatical error (the over-use of comma's being the main one mentioned) before letting them go to press. Its ironic perhaps, concentrate on the look and layout of the piece almost religiously but what about the validity of the claims in it?. Stephen seems to be very much involved in his career, his profession, he doesn't have a partner or children from what I remember, although its indicated that he has feelings for his assistant/colleague Amy. He pretty much looks the part of a journalist and seeing him speak in front of a class of presumably wannabe journalists, he seems in his element. Image seems to be quite a big consideration, earlyish on in the movie the journalists working for the paper are encouraged to come forward with more stories that will help keep the paper going, as there was a fear that it was possibly becoming outdated, with the internet generation pushing through (the movie is set in 1998 I believe - its funny to see shots of the old Yahoo search engine and old CRT monitors in use back then - it does look pretty outdated now) and there being a worrying feeling that the paper is still stuck in the 1980s and may become rather obsolete.

Back to the movie and I'd say that its perhaps a bit bland - really its all about the story, the performances are decent enough (side note - Hayden Christensen playing Stephen looks almost like Harry Potter with those glasses!) and its watchable, its not overly long at about an hour and a half running time, though its not the sort of movie that I feel really 'pulled me in' - its not particularly suspenseful or thrilling, or I suppose even entertaining maybe... it depends, its a movie that if the story and the questions it poses is something your really interested in then its worth a watch, you know the usual pretty much. I wouldn't say its a bad movie per se, infact I think in a way its a movie that needed to be made for the questions it raises about self regulation in the press and suchlike - given its remit to tell a true story and to make you think, it does that quite well but as an all-out engrossing big Hollywood blockbuster, eh, that its not, I think its fair to say (not that it necessarily should be one of those but all the same.).… Expand

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