Fair Game is a 2010 biographical thriller about CIA operative Valerie Plame who discovers her identity is allegedly leaked by the government as payback for an op-ed article her husband wrote criticizing the Bush administration.
Political thrillers are hit miss with audiences, most probably worn numb by the already media-saturated coverage of real life controversies and corruption. The few that make it work are those that give viewers not just more insight into the story but a sense of investment, usually made so by the actors on screen who humanize the events that have since been only headlines. In Doug Liman‘s underappreciated 2010 film Fair Game, that is precisely the intent, the complex and often convoluted real-life story seemingly tailor-made for the theater, its cast of characters straight out of a spy thriller novel.
So what’s it about? In a nutshell, back when George W. Bush was in office as President of the United States, a lot was spinning out of control in the aftermath of the 911 terrorist attacks. Focus shifted to Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, a target and accusation long held by the American government. Bush and his crew really wanted to go to war and were desperately trying to make even the most gossamer of connections to tie the Saddam Hussein-led regime to anything menacing enough to be cause for military action. In so doing, one such attempt was to see if yellowcake uranium, an essential ingredient in making nuclear weapons, was being manufactured in the African country of Niger and then transported to Iraq. It wasn’t.
We know this because Joseph C. Wilson, a diplomat in the Bush administration went there and found no evidence of such though his superiors chose to ignore that proof and proceed anyway. Bad move. Wilson, seeing troops deployed, quickly wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, exposing the truth, that it was not only unfounded by logistically impossible. Things went even more south. In retaliation, and in efforts to discredit him, people from the White House turned to his wife Valerie Plame, outing her as an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. Que the circus.
In the film, Plame is portrayed by Naomi Watts, who had already become a sort of household-named celebrity, her wild successes in movies like 2001’s Mulholland Drive, 2002’s The Ring, and 2005’s King Kong making her a box office sure thing. She has this rare quality of outside the box beauty and legit authenticity that makes her entirely convincing in just about any role she takes. That quality is what make her turn as Plame so memorable, even as the film itself failed to really strike as intended.
Let’s put aside that Watts already is eerily similar in appearance with Plame and concentrate on what she does to give this woman great weight in the story. Let’s face it, there are plenty of models for being a spy or secret agent in movies, but then again, just about all of them are men. When women do get the chance to play the game, they are often femme fatales, their sexuality reason for their participation. Think of Jennifer Lawrence‘s recent turn in Red Sparrow or Bridget Fonda in 1993’s Point of No Return. Either that or they are cartoony action counterpoints to the male-dominated genre. Thank you Angelina Jolie.
With Plame, Watts plays it real, with Liman reeling in the fantasy action in favor of a potboiler premise that hinges on dialogue and moments of genuine stress. Watts gives Plame plenty of vulnerability while keeping her incredibly empowered. The immense pressure and destabilization for her and the operations she was part of are paralleled by her tested marriage to Wilson, played with usual intensity by Sean Penn, who argues he had no choice in fighting the powers above him. Watch how Watts feels so physically small in these moments but commands such extraordinary attention. She plays Plame with divided loyalties, initially feeling Wilson was wrong for exposing her, destroying the efforts she worked so hard to maintain as a CIA agent, the consequences themselves with potentially devastating push back. It’s an interesting argument.
Watts is such an engaging actor, her fearlessness in her approach making her endlessly watchable, this film flipping expectations of gender roles in movies. I love how she moves, the way she tilts her head and lulls us into her little world of intrigue, the film’s terrific opening establishing everything about what kind of character we’re dealing with. Watts has rightfully earned acclaim for some of her work and this role is one well worth exploring.