Fair Game

Cannes (Official Selection) – Doug Liman's latest offering is an adaptation of Valerie Plame's memoir, Fair Game, in which she details from her own perspective the scandal that saw her unmasked before the world as a covert CIA operative. Emma Rowley spies on the spies.

The Valerie Plame affair (inevitably also known as “Plamegate” – note to press: no more dubbing scandals with a -gate suffix, please) marked the moment in which the Bush administration's public avowal that all of its actions were designed to protect US citizens was exposed to even its most ardent supporters as a meaningless pose. For Plame was one of their own, a public servant and CIA operative who had worked for the government for 18 years. In other words, if they were willing to hang her out to dry, who could possibly be considered safe?

This, really, is the basis for Doug Liman's film and its angle is that it is the responsibility of every citizen to safeguard their democracy and reject the platitudes of demagoguery. The film opens in Kuala Lumpur, where we see Plame in action. A contact tries to catch her out in her cover story with a cunning question about her hockey team allegiance. Plame's unruffled response takes in her ostensible place of birth, a recent signing to the team he mentions and a little joke. She is, we are meant to understand, one of the best; an asset to her country.

Our next introduction is to Plame's outspoken husband, ex-diplomat Joe Wilson, who calls a dinner party guest a “racist pussy” for his ignorant remarks about nervous turban-wearers on planes (he could presumably also have pointed out that turbans are characteristically worn by Sikhs, not Muslims). He is filled with righteous indignation, and is not a little in love with the sound of his own voice; a combination that is to prove explosive.

When Joe Wilson discovers that it was his own report on the movement of yellowcake uranium out of Niger (in short: it didn't happen) that was misinterpreted and used as a justification for war, he writes a rebuttal, entitled “What I didn't find in Africa”. In retaliation senior officials attempt to discredit Wilson by leaking to journalist Robert Novak the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative, and had recommended her husband for the job. The implication was that he was unqualified and getting a free holiday (though the film mentions he was chosen as he had previously worked as Director of African Policy for the Clinton administration).

If you're wondering why this review focuses so much on the politics and so little on the film, that's because the account of this Machiavellian scheming is fascinating, and the film Liman constructs around the facts much less so. It's a pedestrian outing that exhibts little of the visual flair of Liman's earlier work (Swingers, Go) and the script (by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth) sags perceptibly after Plame has been dismissed from the CIA. It's strongest moments come in chronicling the hysteria of the Bush government and its bullying tactics; as well as some neat scenes in which David Denman stands in for the average dinner party pundit, parroting back garbled snippets about uranium and weapons production to his much-more knowledgeable host. There's a subplot involving nuclear scientists who are abandoned by the US government – and the film treats them in pretty much the same way.

Naomi Watts makes a good job of the difficult role of Plame. It's a tough gig to play as she is characterised as habitually reserved and selflessly heroic. Luckily, Watts is one of the few female A-list actors who has not succumbed to Botox, so is still able to express a range of emotions including stress and surprise – something that is becoming a rare commodity in Hollywood. Sean Penn plays Joe Wilson as an angry Sean Penn. It seems almost counter-productive to cast such a famous liberal in the role: it's not exactly going to help change the minds of hardline fans of the Bush administration, and it's not much of a stretch for the actor himself. But the role was probably catnip to Penn, and who could resist an actor of his stature?

Altogether, it's a workmanlike take on an interesting bit of political manoeuvering. It's hard to believe it would have been a contender for the Palme d'Or had it not been for its political stance, and it's telling that watching the real Valerie Plame speak at the end of the film constiutes one of its best scenes.

Rating on a scale of another 5 reasons not to attend dinner parties: 2

Release date: TBC 
Directed by: Doug Liman 
Written by: Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, based on the memoir by Valerie Plame Wilson 
Cast: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Ty Burrell, Bruce McGill, David Andrews, Brooke Smith, Michael Kelly
Rating: TBC 
Running time: 106 minutes