By Faris Tanyos for KDRV
 
May 10, 2009
 
Grade: B+
 
"But I was just some stupid boy on a bus
When your nom de guerre was Codename Caroline
And so my Vespa became your chariot
From the Green Zone Marriott
To be etched upon my mind...
 
And when they flashed your picture 'cross the screen
How my heart seemed to leap out of me
And they attached a list of your identities
But the one you'll always be
Is Valerie Plame."
 
- The Decemberists
 
"Nothing but the Truth" is the kind of flick actors fall all over themselves to audition for; the reason that producers and casting directors open their front doors to find the morning paper buried beneath chocolate and flower baskets and Lakers tickets. It is by definition issuetainment. So it's no surprise the cast we have here: Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Alan Alda, David Schwimmer, Angela Bassett, Noah Wyle, Vera Farmiga...
 
Writer/Director Rod Lurie loosely parallels Plamegate, but ignores the complicated politics, instead focusing on a very personal story, and a very good one at that.
 
Washington Reporter Rachel Armstrong (Beckinsale, based on New York Times Reporter Judith Miller) writes an article criticizing the President's foreign policy, in which she outs the identity of CIA Operative Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga, based on Valerie Plame). Armstrong sees only Pulitzers. Van Doren sees her life destroyed. Armstrong refuses to reveal the source who leaked Van Doren's identity. Federal Prosecutor Patton Dubois (Matt Dillon) comes down hard on Armstrong, and despite the best efforts of her lawyer (Alan Alda), she is jailed for contempt of court.
 
Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame. Armstrong spends much more, and her life slowly falls apart, beginning with her marriage to Novelist Ray Armstrong (David Schwimmer), her son Timmy (Preston Bailey), and her jail buddies. Throughout her incarceration she gets the full, unflinching backing of her paper, from Chief Editor Bonnie (Angela Bassett) to the paper's feisty attorney Avril (Noah Wyle).
 
The story pits Armstrong against Van Doren, whose children, by a cruel twist of fate, attend the same school. Who is right? Armstrong is protecting her source, and her 1st Amendment rights. If she outs them, no one will trust her again. But what if her source is handing out government secrets like hotcakes; secrets that could be far more damaging to the security of the nation?
 
The tireless Dubois tells a haggard Armstrong, "I'm just doing my job." And that's just it. Everyone is just doing their job. No one is wrong here. Armstrong isn't taking on a government with endless resources, she's fighting a way-of-thought; one that, since 9/11, wonders whether it's OK to give someone a time-out from their unalienable rights, for the sake of the ‘bigger picture'. There isn't even a clear line to be crossed anymore, because there are thousands of them, and we're blindly hopscotching between like we're dancing on hot coals. Good, hardworking people operating in a flawed system of justice perhaps? Has any event in the nation's history more obviously tested our ideas of right and wrong? The department whose job it was to defend Miller's 1st Amendment rights instead, used those very rights against her. ‘A slippery slope' doesn't even begin to explain that.
 
The effects of Armstrong's resilient silence snowballs and snowballs, until no one is left unscathed, and then, no one is right, but by that point, it doesn't matter. It is what it is: Like a fighting couple who can't remember why the fight started in the first place.
 
This is a story absolutely without villains, and that's very good, and very rare. Everyone has a worthy point of view, and Lurie tries to show us that. However, despite his attempt to be fair, his sympathies are see-through, and he employs a little too much melodrama, and one too many ‘Law and Order' monologues.
 
Actually, there is one villain, Farmiga's poor performance. Farmiga, who was also subpar in "The Departed", doesn't sell us on her desperate straits, she's too understated.
 
This isn't "All the President's Men", but it's good, and it'll make you ponder the state of things. It reminded me of the brilliant and grossly overlooked "Rendition" (2007).
 
ftanyos@kdrv.com