State of Play (2009)
Grade:A-
As word started trickling in about the cast that director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) was assembling for his adaptation of the BBC miniseries State of Play, it started looking like a sure-fire hit. On the poster alone are Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe, and Helen Mirren. Off the poster are also Robin Wright Penn, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels, and Viola Davis. Behind the scenes, Tony Gilroy (Duplicity and Michael Clayton) and Billy Ray (Shattered Glass) were polishing Matthew Michael Carnahan’s (The Kingdom, Lions for Lambs) screenplay, and Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain) was enlisted as director of photography. It all seemed very promising, especially coupled with the solid miniseries on which the film is based. The pedigree of everyone involved didn’t disappoint: State of Play is a nearly great film, a couple stumbles at the end being the only problematic elements in the otherwise solid film.
What the screenwriters have accomplished here is quite impressive. On the film’s own terms, this functions marvelously as a thriller, but it’s also quite timely, managing to provide a commentary on the state of print media in the ever-growing presence of online journalism while centering its central mystery on a Blackwater-esque private ops military group. It could have all collapsed under its own ambitions, and the fact that it never seems clunky in its themes is a testament to the writing. Comparing this to the six-hour miniseries, the writers should also be credited for condensing the material effectively into a two-hour film.
State of Play is a throwback to journalism films of the past (All the President’s Men comes to mind) in its story of newspaper reporter Cal McAffrey (Crowe) investigating the death of Sonia Baker, an intern to Congressman Stephen Collins (Affleck). Political blogger Della Frye (McAdams) proves to be McAffrey’s antithesis initially, posting unsubstantiated articles on their newspaper’s website, then becoming as involved in the escalating investigation as McAffrey, who happens to be an old friend of Collins. Mirren rounds out the impressive central cast as their editor.
The film is as successful as it is because the cast and crew all seem to be in synergy with each other. The actors all share a credible chemistry with each other, the set decoration provides sets for these actors that seem wholly lived in and do a bulk of the character development, the cinematography is kinetic without being frantic, and the writing pops without ever devolving into overly talky interactions. It all simply works together, each disparate element elevating the others. (The color palette of the film seemed overly muddy, though, but I’ll blame the theater until I can catch the film again.)
Where the film stumbles is in satisfyingly closing up all the loose ends. The film reeks just a touch of Studio Rewrite in the way that the film seems to tack on one final twist – though it was there in the original miniseries, it almost felt like they were going to excise it in the name of differentiation and in the name of streamlining the material. While this final twist isn’t detrimental to the film, it worked noticeably better in the miniseries and feels unnecessary here. Also, while the adaptation as a whole is solid and well-done, the seams show a bit on the slicing and dicing that gets done with Anne Collins (Wright Penn), Stephen Collins’s wife and ex-lover of Cal. She’s the character that gets sidelined the most in comparison to the original, and it’s noticeable in the finished film.
Ultimately, though, the film is smart, enthralling entertainment. There isn’t a weak member of the cast: McAdams and Bateman in particular prove to rise to the challenges of their roles (McAdams is naive without being ditzy or stupid, Bateman is sleazy without devolving into playing comic relief). State of Play was pushed from last fall, and it’s a shame they didn’t trust the strength of the film to be a viable player in awards season. With a little bit of a reworked ending and another year of editing, I would’ve rather seen this pushed a full year to this fall, because it certainly had the potential to be a classic-in-waiting. Still, what we’re left with is an immensely engrossing film, despite its minor faults.
Read about State of Play at my Year in Review: 2009 article.
Bottom Line:
The whole thing feels like a throwback to journalism pictures of the seventies, providing timely commentary on the state of print journalism in a film that’s highly entertaining as a thriller.
© 2004-2009 Ben Waldorf. Posted April 18, 2009. IMDB