Shattered Glass is a fairly simple, true story that takes place largely within an office building. On one level there’s not much to distinguish it from an episode of some crime solving TV show. On the other hand, it’s been a long time since a film sunk in so deeply – I can’t stop thinking about it. And it’s not because it’s some mind-bending puzzler. It’s actually all pretty straightforward. I think it may just be that the character of Stephen Glass, who, though friendly, sweet and innocent, is one of the most haunting characters I’ve seen on the screen in a long time.

Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) is a journalist who has made it as an associate editor for the New Republic at the age of 25. His friendly, people-person personality has earned him the respect of his co-workers, but not as much as his continually fantastic stories have. But these stories aren’t all completely true, in fact, Glass has been making some of them up outright. He writes about fake people in fake companies doing fake things and even creates fake phone numbers and fake websites to back it all up.

Glass gets away with it for awhile because he has the trust of his editor, Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria), who defends Glass’ every word. Things change when Kelly is fired and Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) is made the new editor. With the help of online magazine reporter, Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), Lane begins to figure out what’s going on while Glass does his darndest to cover his tracks.

The acting is fantastic all around, but Hayden Christensen is just awesome. He manages to pull off just the right feel of a guy who’s sweet, sensitive and incessantly squirrelly. I can still hear his innocent sounding voice ask his editor, “Are you mad at me?” Peter Sarsgaard is equally riveting as the boss who’s doing everything he can to keep himself from just smacking the kid. The music is subtle enough keep you engaged without realizing it’s there and the editing keeps what could be a slow story moving forward.

I’m not normally someone who’s impressed with based-on-a-true-story stories but this one seems especially fascinating for its reality. It all happened just five years ago and you can still read the original revelation of the scandal by Adam Penenberg online and you can even find Glass’ fake website. As far as I can tell, the film doesn’t really go out of the bounds of what actually happened, and considering, it’s pretty amazing.

Shattered Glass also succeeds where most based-on-a-true-story stories fail. Instead of just telling us what happens, it allows us to reflect on how it could have happened. In part through an effective side story where Glass tells his story to a high school class, the film manages to say something significant about what humans are willing to do to reach a dream and possibly even about the idealist but self-absorbed world they live in. And there’s more. What allowed the staff to be deceived and what led Glass to believe he could do it? It’s a fascinating character study to say the least. And at the very least, it’s a haunting reminder of the extent of man’s potential for corruption.

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