By Drew Smith

Nothing But the Truth, a film inspired by actual events, yanks the skeleton of its plot from the closet of the Bush administration.  Here’s a quick recap of the true story.  In 2003, crusty Washington Post columnist Robert Novak, discussing former ambassador Joseph Wilson‘s investigation into Iraq’s possible attempts to acquire uranium, exposed Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent.  In the course of a federal grand jury’s search for the loose-lipped ship-sinker, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenaed a roster of reporters with knowledge of Plame’s night job.  When New York Times reporter Judith Miller refused to spill the oil, the bench held her in contempt and jailed the journalist for three months.  The film trades Iraq for Venezuela, a war for an assassination attempt, and pulls the plug on the journalism pinball game in order to start the story after the leak.

If this tale isn’t familiar, the cast will be.  Alan Alda plays cufflinked defense attorney Alan Burnside, Matt Dillon is gung-ho prosecutor Patton Dubois, and Kate Beckinsale conjures her best Miller as Rachel Armstrong.  It’s an impressive roster of talent in one courtroom.  But to a generation fed by Hollywood, it appears that the pot-growing hippie from Flirting with Disaster (Alda) argues with the whipped husband of You, Me and Dupree (Dillon) while the pouty socialite from The Last Days of Disco (Beckinsale) tries to summon tears.  It’s not that the acting is bad.  But like Plame, the performers are overexposed.  In order to sympathize with Armstrong, the suspension of previous film knowledge isn’t enough – that knowledge needs to be jailed.  A mustache on Dillon might have masked prior movie memories.

Luckily, all the actors without a star on Hollywood Boulevard execute their roles brilliantly.  Vera Farmiga plays Erica Van Doren, the Plame character, by deftly mixing two parts soccer mom and one part secret agent.  She owns every one of her scenes, and her confrontations with Beckinsale’s Armstrong are electric.  Another actor, Floyd Abrams, isn’t an actor at all, but Miller’s real-life attorney and quite possibly the nation’s most celebrated First Amendment attorney today.  Hired as a consultant, Abrams won a role as Judge Hall and manages to capture the world-weary view of a man gnawed on by the jaws of the law for far too long.

The film jazzes up the justice system, but to its benefit.  The poorly lit Supreme Court is dark as a high school prom and the justices are silent like shy teenage attendees afraid to speak up, allowing Burnside to speak unchallenged.  Supreme Court transcripts aren’t known for their soliloquies, but in the context of the scene it helps to drum up emotion for Armstrong.  Also, in reality, Miller’s argument invoking the First Amendment was futile.  In a 1972 case, Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court declined to recognize a special reporter’s right to protect sources in front of grand juries.

The film excels technically.  Murky greens and blues submerge every scene, projecting the dreariness of an unclean aquarium.  Frequent closeups gently reveal the characters’ emotions.  A few well-shot, smartly-scripted scenes between Armstrong and her husband serve as cold reminders of consequences in a life built on principles.  (Miller’s husband coolly jetted to catch a Mediterranean cruise, only days after she entered a women’s prison.)  The pacing of the script accelerates and brakes at the right moments, taking unexpected turns, including a flashback, one final departure from reality that is muted and poignant.

Nothing but the Truth is often as far from the truth as Hollywood is from Washington D.C., but it’s still a pretty decent movie.