MOVIE DETAILS
Rating: 7.1 out of 10
Director: Rod Lurie
Writer: Rod Lurie
Star: Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Vera Farmiga
Genres: Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: July 29, 2009 (Philippines)
In “Nothing But the Truth,” Alan Alda reads a dissenting Supreme Court opinion defending journalists’ right to protect confidential sources. I took it for an actual speech and was surprised to find out the Supreme Court never heard the case that inspired the movie. The only thing truer would be if written opinions were required of screenwriters, because it smacked so much of American idealism that I got goosebumps.
The film is obviously based on the case of Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in prison for refusing to name her source in the Valerie Plame affair. That’s when Vice President Cheney’s top aide blew the cover of a CIA agent to discredit her husband, who had been investigating reports that Niger sold uranium to Saddam Hussein. He didn’t find any such evidence all part of the web of Bush-Cheney lies about WMDs used to justify invading Iraq.
The details are different, but if you know what happened generally, Lurie’s fictional story can easily be read as being directly parallel with if not exactly Miller/Valerie Plame/Joseph Wilson. In real life Miller’s reporting was sharply criticized for accuracy and objectivity; Lurie sidesteps history by focusing on confidentiality-versus-national-security principle: Which matters more? Trying to handle genuine Miller would have plunged movie into quicksand of complications.
Now some readers are asking why don’t I just review the movie without bringing politics into it? If you are one such reader then do not see “Nothing but the Truth.” It will make you either angry or uncomfortable take your pick. That Bush lied us into Iraq is beyond reasonable doubt, and these are some results.
But Lurie has something more than a political parable up his sleeve. More than anything else this is a film about people caught in circumstances and his actors play characters not types very well indeed. Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) is the reporter for the “Capitol Sun-Times.” Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga) is the spy who gets outed. Matt Dillon is prosecutor Patton Dubois, obviously intended as U.S. prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, now so involved in the case of our fascinating former Illinois governor. Alda is high-priced Washington lawyer hired by newspaper to defend Rachel. Angela Basset plays newspaper editor under pressure to tart up coverage, trying to stand firm. And here’s a neat one: There’s a terrific performance by Floyd Abrams as federal judge; in real life he was Miller’s attorney.
Armstrong and Van Doren are suburban Washington soccer moms whose children go to the same school without their knowing it or each other, until they find themselves on opposite sides of The Leak. Having obtained possession of it, the reporter asks the agent point-black if it’s true and receives in return an answer that Justice Scalia does not believe decent people use in public. It is a scene fierce enough
Dubois, the prosecutor, subpoenas Armstrong as part of his investigation into the leak and she refuses to name names. That’s when her nightmare behind bars begins, during which time she has been imprisoned longer than any other female inmate. She won’t talk even though it drives away her husband (David Schwimmer), alienates her little boy and brands her a bad mother who puts career before family.
What happens to her seems like cruel and unusual punishment. As Dubois, Dillon is the bad guy but only doing his job in fact, says Dillon, he played the role as if he were the movie’s good guy. Alda starts off strong as a man not above bragging about his expensive Zegna suit but gets so caught up that he goes pro bono. The toll on both women is devastating.
Lurie is a strong filmmaker freed by fiction to do two things very well: (1) Present the issues with great clarity; (2) Show that a reporter’s reasons for concealing a source may be more compelling than we think. What’s deeply satisfying about “Nothing But the Truth” is that its ending which will come as a surprise to almost all viewers doesn’t cheat but rather explains some unresolved testimony in a way that makes sense.
“Nothing But the Truth” is an intelligent film of people and ideas that respects its audience’s intelligence, contains real drama, earns its suspense and has something it wants to say. In another year it would have had a high-profile release and likely won nominations. But when the economy tanked so did its distributor; missing its release window, it must live on DVD. This is far beyond “straight-to-DVD” quality stuff here folks, trust me on this one.
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