Fair Game (***1/4)

The story of Valerie Plame, or Valerie Plame Wilson, is pretty well known to those who follow American politics, especially in the spring of 2003. Plame’s (Naomi Watts) husband had been sent to Niger to see whether Iraq had attempted to buy “yellow cake” uranium there. If so, this would tend to corroborate the views of those in the Bush administration who believed that Iraq was attempting to develop nuclear weapons, and that war was justified to prevent this. But Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) found no evidence in Niger, and said so in a New York Times editorial. Soon after, a column by Robert Novak mentioned that Wilson’s wife was a CIA “operative on weapons of mass destruction.” And then she wasn’t.

Directed by Doug Liman (Swingers, Mr. & Mrs. Smith), Fair Game was adapted by Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth from books by Plame and Wilson, and sticks to their point of view. Therefore, it is not primarily a political movie. Factually speaking, you are left essentially none the wiser (at least, if you read the news) about the process by which Plame’s name was leaked to Robert Novak. Most of the key plot points are revealed in scenes where one or the other of the Wilsons is shown watching a news report, or reading a newspaper story.

The story Liman and the Butterworths tell is the story of a married couple whose lives are upended with no warning. The early scenes show Plame as a cool-headed operator (and operative) who merely listens as her dinner-table companions express opinions on the possibility of war. (Her husband, a former ambassador and a foreign-policy expert, is less restrained.) At work, Plame calmly persuades. When a colleague loudly insists, over objections from others, that the Iraqis have centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons, Plame defuses the situation. “We’re not saying you’re wrong,” she says, “but if you’re right, it’s huge, and we want to be sure.” Later, it is this hawkish colleague who has the ear of the White House.

This pre-leak part of the movie is less exciting, but there is a key moment when Plame explains that to lie convincingly, you need to know why you’re lying, and never forget the truth. She’s talking to a source she plans to send to Iraq to gather information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons program, and her lies are necessary for her job. In any event, the latter half of the movie has obvious dramatic appeal even for the non-political junkie. Although Plame had not been a political actor, she and Wilson were subjected to threats, intrusions by the press, and false information.

The media, some of whom couldn’t even get straight whether Plame was a field agent or merely an office worker, come off looking at least as bad as the Bush administration. Were they lying? It’s not clear, because for something to be a lie you need to actually know the truth.

IMDB link

viewed 11/2/2010 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 11/2/2010