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# Shattered Glass: Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard in the story of a fabricating reporter
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/review-20031107/
- Published: 2003-11-07T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:10:38.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*‘Glass’ performances prove to be rock solid*

Writer/director Billy Ray has referred to his captivating film “Shattered Glass” as the cinematic equivalent of good reporting. And while the movie does, like the exhaustively researched Vanity Fair article that inspired it, meticulously connect the dots of the real events surrounding New Republic writer Stephen Glass’ incredible fall from grace, “Shattered Glass” also serves as a compelling cautionary tale about the dangers inherent to a cult of personality and how the pressure to perform in the modern workplace can exact a catastrophic toll.

Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard deliver a pair of award-caliber performances. Christensen stars as Glass, the young scribe who wowed readers and colleagues in the late 1990s with a string of fantastic features in several high-profile publications. Sarsgaard plays Chuck Lane, the New Republic editor who fired Glass in 1998, after discovering his published articles were littered with fabrications. Known as “the in-flight magazine of Air Force One,” the New Republic was considered the breeding ground for the best and bright-est in political reporting circles, and Glass was its most luminescent star.

By all accounts, he was maniacally driven, and equally adept at projecting an air of supreme self-confidence and woeful insecurity. Christensen, who never met Glass, just flat-out nails the enigma. We know this guy is an expert at deception, yet we can’t help but get sucked in, just like his colleagues. Sarsgaard, as the moral center of the film, is a refreshing change of pace from the kung-fu-fighting, heavily armed killing machines that pass as heroes in most Hollywood blockbusters. Chuck Lane conquers not with physical might, but by the strength of his conviction that integrity and honor matter above all else.

It’s a lesson Stephen Glass learned the hard way, and one that elevates this film to impressive heights. (Rated PG-13\. Running time: 103 minutes)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 7, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/110703.pdf?ref=smdp.com)