fair game directed by doug liman
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Joseph Wilson spent two decades in the U.S. foreign service, working to foster democracy in Niger, Burundi, and the Congo. Assigned to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, he was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein before Operation Desert Storm drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in January 1991, and seven years later Wilson orchestrated President Clinton’s 11-day tour of the African continent. Shortly thereafter he married 35-year-old Valerie Plame, who had been with the CIA since the mid-80s and was a deep-cover officer operating from national headquarters in Langley, Virginia. After Plame gave birth to their twins in 2000, she returned to active service and, as part of the CIA’s counterproliferation division, helped monitor Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. In this capacity she casually recommended Wilson, by then a private consultant, for a pro bono trip to Niger in late 2001, to assess reports that it was selling yellowcake uranium to Saddam Hussein.
Like All the President’s Men, which was also driven by the chemistry between its two main characters, Fair Game is blessed with strong leads: Penn and Watts are completely convincing as the Wilsons, two people who genuinely love each other but wrestle with the usual problems of work, kids, and social obligations. Joe tends to his consulting business from home and cares for the rambunctious twins while Valerie commutes to Langley and travels around the globe. He’s assertive, professorial, and a little self-righteous; she’s more reasoned and circumspect. Shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, they attend a dinner party where the conversation turns to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, and Joe tells off another guest. “He’s one of our oldest friends,” Plame reminds him as they drive home afterward. “You can’t call him a racist pussy.” They’re like any married couple, comparing notes after an intimate social gathering. Their affection is evident a few scenes later, when they meet at CIA headquarters and Joe playfully bumps hips with his wife in the corridors of power.
Eventually every story line in the movie comes down to a matter of trust—between the White House and the CIA, between citizens and their leaders, between husbands and wives. The Wilsons’ low point arrives when Joe learns in the media about Valerie’s internal memo recommending him for the Niger trip, which contradicts his own statements on the matter and invites the right-wingers to pounce. The spouses face off in the park as their kids scamper around out of earshot, and Joe quickly zeroes in on Valerie’s talent for subterfuge. (“You think I’m lying?” she asks him. “Could I tell if you were?” he replies.) The Plame-Wilson affair was partly resolved in 2006 when former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage identified himself as Novak’s source, and the following year when a jury convicted Scooter Libby, the vice president’s former chief of staff, of having lied to the FBI and obstructed its investigation as it crept toward his boss. But the bigger lies that took the country to war linger on in the body politic—long after the Wilsons managed to mend their marriage.
