READ BETWEEN THE LIES.
Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) is a brilliant, young writer at The New Republic; his latest piece raises eyebrows, but critical eyes begin to look closer at his work… First-time director Billy Ray’s look at the real-life story of how a journalist wunderkind was exposed as a fraud in 1998 is pretty straightforward filmmaking where the strength lies in the acting and writing. It is fascinating to follow Glass’s each fateful step, one hopeless lie after the other, and Christensen gives us an idea of what makes him tick. The applause, the status… Glass’s weak character just couldn’t resist it. Peter Sarsgaard is good as Glass’s moral opposite.
2003-U.S. 94 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Craig Baumgarten, Tove Christensen, Gaye Hirsch, Adam Merims. Written and directed by Billy Ray. Cast: Hayden Christensen (Stephen Glass), Peter Sarsgaard (Charles “Chuck” Lane), Chloë Sevigny (Caitlin Avey), Rosario Dawson, Melanie Lynskey, Steve Zahn… Hank Azaria.
Trivia: Co-executive produced by Tom Cruise. Greg Kinnear and Maggie Gyllenhaal were allegedly considered for parts in the film.
Last word: “I didn’t mind telling people what I didn’t know, but there comes a point where you have to make decisions as if you do know. If you big dog it, and if you pretend to know more than you do, you lose your crew. They know you’re full of s*** and that’s it. But this was the exact opposite. I went up to every single one of them, asked them what they thought, said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ all the time and let them know how much I needed them, how much I valued them. And they broke their backs for me, every one of them. They were great. My crew was incredible. My actors were too.” (Ray, IGN)
