There was something about the whole outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame that I just didn’t get. What was it supposed to prove? “Hey Ambassador Joe Wilson! You poked holes in a flimsy justification for war with a country that didn’t do jack to us, so we publicly identified your as a CIA agent to teach you a lesson.” Huh. Now call me on this if I’m wrong, but this has to be the worst case of spite in political history, not to mention the most criminally petty, since it is illegal to blow an agent’s cover and effectively subvert about 20 years of ongoing operations at Central Intelligence.
But while the real life logic escapes me, the affair did provide fertile storytelling potential for Rod Lurie to create Nothing But the Truth, an often times fascinating deconstruction and dramatization of the events that inspired it. No, this is not the Valerie Plame story, not even close really. The 2003 “Plamegate” affair did however serve as a source of inspiration. The basic facts of the case are a springboard to delve into the moral ambiguity and dubious legality of the issues involved. It’s a world Lurie’s used to and knows all too well. The former journalist is behind such previously politically-minded fair like The Contender and Commander-in-Chief. 

In Truth, Kate Beckinsale plays Rachel Armstrong, a national reporter for a fictional Washington newspaper covering the US attack on Venezuela after it’s discovered that the Communist South American country was behind an attempt on the President’s life. But Armstrong finds out that the one agent that dissented in the opinion that Venezuela was culpable is the seemingly sweet-natured mother of one her son’s school friends. Though solid reporting from interviewing confidential sources, Armstrong outs Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga) as an agent. And then things really hit the fan. A government special prosecutor (Matt Dillon) demands that Armstrong reveal her source, and she refuses on the high road ground that a reporter should never reveal her sources. 

So then what happens? Well, she goes to jail for a year while the lawyers argue the case points and Van Doren’s life falls apart under the media scrutiny surrounding the case and that fact that she’s now useless as a covert operative. The main debate of the film though is whether or not a reporter’s right to keep their confidential sources confidential is sacrosanct, even in spite of the fact that the information involved is of a national security compromising nature. Lurie and the actors do a good job of showing the pros and cons of the characters and their positions, not to mention making sure that of the main characters, there are no real good guy and bad guys, but just people. 

Now it’s known that I have a bias as far as Kate Beckinsale is concerned, but if I may say, she really is a standout thanks to a reserved, underappreciated performance as Armstrong. The reporter is neither demon nor martyr, but someone who thought they were doing their duty as a journalist no matter how quasi-cynical she is when discussing Pulitzer possibilities. Farmiga is appropriately dual-layered in her performance as Van Doren, easily making you believe that as an agent she was able to lead two entirely different lives at once. According to legend, Farmiga passed an actual lie detector test in character, which even if not true, is kind of believable after watching her work in Truth. Alan Alda also deserves praise as Armstrong’s attorney, offering class and gravity to what could have been a write-off part. 

Working in Lurie’s favour is that this movie is far from plebiscite and neatly manages to be an objective What-If scenario where-in he tests who would react in what way if these events were real. When the film focuses on the case things are tight and crisp, but when it takes a break to look at the personal, it kind of loses me. David Schwimmer as Armstrong’s doubting husband has kind of a pain, but that may have just been the way the actor carries himself. And the final revelation of the source seemed kind of silly and tacked on to create an illicit kind of twisty feeling in order to make you take dramatic pause. But Lurie keeps things in perspective more often than not, and the result is a potent mix of theme, story and message.