I Present To You Shattered Glass, The Most Underrated Movie Of All-Time

This is one of my favorite films to talk about. It’s my go to obscure movie recommendation and it’s also the first film I bring up every time somebody says Hayden Christensen can’t act. For people who haven’t heard about it before, this 2003 film (based on a true story) is about a writer for the New Republic named Stephen Glass, who is accused of partially or wholly fabricating many of his stories. This movie is so freaking good and so damn under appreciated. I hope this blog opens more people’s eyes to it.

As far as films about journalism go, I put this ahead of the Academy Award winning Spotlight. It may lack the cultural pertinence that film had, but it’s made up for with a tight script and some great, great acting. Hayden Christensen is mesmerizing in this as Stephen Glass. Watching this film, it becomes very clear that the issues with his performance as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels stem more from the script and the poor direction than they do from his acting. He’s a good actor and he’s great in this film. This is one of those weird movies that has a lot of famous actors who are all playing small parts. Rosario Dawson, Steve Zahn, and Hank Azaria all give good performances in small roles, but the acting centerpiece in this movie is the great Peter Sarsgaard. I feel like Sarsgaard has done a poor job of picking big budget scripts (*cough* Green Lantern *cough*) but his smaller projects are so good. His performance in Shattered Glass is seriously one of the best ever. He’s remarkably subtle through a majority of the film as the new editor of the New Republic, but his big blowup scene near the end is one of my favorite scenes in any movie.

I’d easily put this in my top 10 favorite films of all-time. It’s such a tight script. Every line feels important. This is one of those movies that should be taught in film classes when you discuss pacing and characterization. Everyone feels fleshed out, especially the main players. In terms of structure, this is basically a perfect movie. It’s one of those rare films that I have no complaints about. It’s directed and written by a man named Billy Ray, who has only directed 3 feature films, but he’s written a bunch of well known movies, including The Hunger Games and Captain Phillips, which he got nominated for an Oscar for. It’s seems like writing is his forte, but he can go to the grave knowing he directed one of the best (and most underrated) films of all-time. It’s on Amazon Prime right now. I highly recommend you give it a watch and support it.