Post by Eddie Love on Dec 29, 2009 20:10:33 GMT -5
Given the reverence with which Rod Lurie is held by the denizens of Better in the Dark -- I thought I'd give a rundown of his latest opus set in genteel Washington power circles. The plot here is a mash-up of the Valerie Plame / Judith Miller stories of a few years back and a placard at the beginning alerts us that while these events inspired the action, the film isn't obliged to represent the specifics of those cases. (The point then being...?)
An earnest and pony-tailed reporter (Kate Bekinsale) blows the lid off the government's bogus war in Venezuela (prompted by that country's supposed attempt on the life of the US president) by revealing that a covert CIA officer (indie "It" woman Vera Farmiga) had scoped out the allegations for the agency and determined they were false. Her warnings were unheeded, war commenced and reporter Kate splashes the truth across page one and, in doing so, outs Vera's covert status. Crusading special prosecutor Matt Dillon wants to know the source of the story, but Kate won't spill, and heads to lock-up to protect her source. (We're never actually told Dillon's a bad guy-- but he speaks in a Southern accent that drips corruption, so we're meant to assume he's a grandstanding opportunist.)
As mentioned, this is a melange of the Plame / Miller details, however, in that instance, Plame's identity was blown by the powerful in a bid to silence their critics and Miller went to jail to protect them. But here the notion of a pretty and heroic reporter doing time is so much more palatable.
I've read Valerie Plame's memoirs -- and look forward to the Sean Penn / Naomi Watts movie version helmed by Doug Liman. The treatment of her plight here is annoyingly superficial. As played by Farmiga she's a jittery basket case. We're supposed to believe this woman was a successful undercover operative? I don't think so. In defense of Farmiga, her character is plainly made to seem unlikable so the audience won't blame our ostensible heroine for this other woman's fate. Also, her character is rightfully pissed her cover is blown, but doesn't seem to care at all that the veracity of her initial investigation is questioned, or that it's contents have been ignored and a war has begun under false pretenses. (Though none of the other media figures here care either, so maybe there Lurie did get things right.) Meanwhile, Beckinsale as the glam-ed up version of Judith Miller is practically wearing a halo. We're asked to see her as the victim of the other actors in the drama, even as the movie is supposed to let each side hash things out. She even gets better looking with each month behind bars. When her marriage hits the rocks, it's detailed how her husband (David Schwimmer) is a prick, while with Farmiga we assume her husband jumps ship simply to get away from her. (Incidentally, the Beckinsale-Schwimmer marriage is one of the least plausible I've seen in a movie, they never seem comfortable with each other and their son looks like neither of them.)
The film ends with a shock revelation of who the reporter's source is, and it's so bizarre that I listened to the commentary track for this sequence to get some sense of what Lurie's intension was. I came away more confused. It's as if A Man for All Seasons ended with the revelation that Sir Thomas Moore was actually Anne Boleyn's secret lover. It wouldn't change his stand, but it certainly would change the context of it. Here, the facts of this disclosure beg to be aired dramatically and in a film this talky it's curious why it wasn't. Yes, the ending is effectively provocative, but mostly it's infuriating.
Lurie seems to be trying for a Lumet type austerity and he sets the camera right amid the actors, so for some scenes we get long looks at people's backs or the back of their heads. There's a good performance from Alan Alda as Kate's lawyer and Beckinsale also has some effective scenes. Here as elsewhere, she does a flawless American accent. Farmiga and Noah Wylie's over-the-top performance almost add to the making this a guilty pleasure.
But in the end the end I felt like I'd received a smug lecture in civics, rather than any kind of hard-hitting expose of the media.
An earnest and pony-tailed reporter (Kate Bekinsale) blows the lid off the government's bogus war in Venezuela (prompted by that country's supposed attempt on the life of the US president) by revealing that a covert CIA officer (indie "It" woman Vera Farmiga) had scoped out the allegations for the agency and determined they were false. Her warnings were unheeded, war commenced and reporter Kate splashes the truth across page one and, in doing so, outs Vera's covert status. Crusading special prosecutor Matt Dillon wants to know the source of the story, but Kate won't spill, and heads to lock-up to protect her source. (We're never actually told Dillon's a bad guy-- but he speaks in a Southern accent that drips corruption, so we're meant to assume he's a grandstanding opportunist.)
As mentioned, this is a melange of the Plame / Miller details, however, in that instance, Plame's identity was blown by the powerful in a bid to silence their critics and Miller went to jail to protect them. But here the notion of a pretty and heroic reporter doing time is so much more palatable.
I've read Valerie Plame's memoirs -- and look forward to the Sean Penn / Naomi Watts movie version helmed by Doug Liman. The treatment of her plight here is annoyingly superficial. As played by Farmiga she's a jittery basket case. We're supposed to believe this woman was a successful undercover operative? I don't think so. In defense of Farmiga, her character is plainly made to seem unlikable so the audience won't blame our ostensible heroine for this other woman's fate. Also, her character is rightfully pissed her cover is blown, but doesn't seem to care at all that the veracity of her initial investigation is questioned, or that it's contents have been ignored and a war has begun under false pretenses. (Though none of the other media figures here care either, so maybe there Lurie did get things right.) Meanwhile, Beckinsale as the glam-ed up version of Judith Miller is practically wearing a halo. We're asked to see her as the victim of the other actors in the drama, even as the movie is supposed to let each side hash things out. She even gets better looking with each month behind bars. When her marriage hits the rocks, it's detailed how her husband (David Schwimmer) is a prick, while with Farmiga we assume her husband jumps ship simply to get away from her. (Incidentally, the Beckinsale-Schwimmer marriage is one of the least plausible I've seen in a movie, they never seem comfortable with each other and their son looks like neither of them.)
The film ends with a shock revelation of who the reporter's source is, and it's so bizarre that I listened to the commentary track for this sequence to get some sense of what Lurie's intension was. I came away more confused. It's as if A Man for All Seasons ended with the revelation that Sir Thomas Moore was actually Anne Boleyn's secret lover. It wouldn't change his stand, but it certainly would change the context of it. Here, the facts of this disclosure beg to be aired dramatically and in a film this talky it's curious why it wasn't. Yes, the ending is effectively provocative, but mostly it's infuriating.
Lurie seems to be trying for a Lumet type austerity and he sets the camera right amid the actors, so for some scenes we get long looks at people's backs or the back of their heads. There's a good performance from Alan Alda as Kate's lawyer and Beckinsale also has some effective scenes. Here as elsewhere, she does a flawless American accent. Farmiga and Noah Wylie's over-the-top performance almost add to the making this a guilty pleasure.
But in the end the end I felt like I'd received a smug lecture in civics, rather than any kind of hard-hitting expose of the media.