Fair Game

Every time an annoyingly earnest screenwriter has pitched an anti-war film in the last five years, there was a collective groan heard round' the studios. Films like Lions For Lambs, Stop Loss, and In the Valley of Elah consistently proved that audiences did not want to see films that were critical of either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. After 2003, the failure of these films was attributed to unwillingness of a patriotic America to bash the Bush administration, preferring instead to let things play out and give both conflicts a chance to succeed. After 2006, the collective thought was that the horrible casualties (and the no-end-in-sight feeling we were getting from the wars) the American people simply didn't want to be reminded of the horror, the horror. It's now 2010 and given the paltry box-office take (barely $700,000) of Fair Game over it's opening weekend, it's safe to conclude we still don't want to see movies that criticize the Bush administration. More on that later.
Fair Game is the story of CIA officer Valerie Plame (played by Naomi Watts), who was part of a team charged with finding out whether or not aluminum tubes purchased by Saddam Hussein were to be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. According to Plame, her bosses at CIA asked if her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), would be willing to go to Niger to ascertain the legitimacy of claims that Hussein had also purchased large amounts of uranium yellowcake from the African nation. Wilson obliged, and returned to the U.S. with a report claiming that he did not think it possible that Hussein had obtained said yellowcake. After George W. Bush made his 2003 State of the Union address claiming that Hussein had in fact purchased uranium, Wilson fired back with an op-ed piece in the New York Times, alleging that the Bush administration was simply cherry-picking information in order to make the case for war against Iraq. What followed was a full-on attack on both Wilson and Plame, culminating in the outing of Plame as a covert CIA officer by journalist Robert Novak. Wilson went on the defensive in the media against the administration, alleging that several of its members were responsible for leaking Plame's identity to Novak in retaliation against Wilson.
The film follows the harrowing effects of Plame's outing, both personal and professional. Plame and Wilson disagree about to handle the attacks, with Wilson choosing to fight Bush and Cheney et. al, in the press while Plame keeps decidedly quiet. After all, she is a woman whose entire career has been based upon secrecy and her ability to weather conflict silently. The toll the turmoil takes on the Wilson/Plame marriage is beautifully rendered, as is the difficulty of parenting in the midst of a shitstorm. Director Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) constructs a textured portrait of a normal looking family with everyday problems where both parents have extraordinary careers. As the firebrand Joe Wilson, Sean Penn stomps around unabashedly screaming at anyone who'll listen. It's brash and obnoxious, but like each role Penn inhabits, it works, damn near perfectly. He steals every scene from Naomi Watts, who does a lovely job of playing a woman hellbent on maintaining her composure. It's a thankless part compared to Penn's Wilson, but such is the nature of performance. Sam Shepherd plays Plame's father and is in only a single scene, serving to do nothing but piss me off that I don't get enough Sam Shepherd, ever.
So why, with good writing, great performances and excellent directing does America not want to see Fair Game? Do we still not want to dredge up the past, particularly when our nation is facing the worst economic crisis in years? Is it because we (as Fox News pundits claim) truly are a country that leans to the right? Does Sean Penn simply annoy us? I know that the politicization of the Wilson/Plame fiasco got so out of hand that most people tired of it the way they tire of all of the polarized discourse in this country. The right accused Wilson and Plame of being stooges for the left. This despite the fact that Wilson was born into a family of Republicans who viewed Barry Goldwater as "a bit liberal". Plame's record of service had been astoundingly impressive until she was outed, and yet her credibility was questioned in the media mercilessly. Any person who has been involved in a public fight can tell you that once the other side starts to attack you personally, they have nothing else to hit you with. Both political parties claimed each side as their own until the Plame/Wilson affair became just another Republican vs. Democrat slugfest. My Comment is more of a hypothesis that most people in this country are so sick of the polemical rhetoric on both sides, that they are choosing to opt out of politics altogether. This is obviously not a new argument, as evidenced by the number of attendees at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. But even that event became a tool for the wackos on both sides to fight about. I'm just sad that a well done film won't be seen because it's message is viewed as simply political, and politics has gone from a fascinating civic discussion to an ugly sideshow that has no place for nuance, compromise or empathy for the opposing side.