Courtesy - The Sunday Leader - By Sumaya SamarasingheValeria Plame and Joe Wilson could be your regular suburban couple. He is a older than she is and seems to be handling most of the child-caring of their little twin boy and girl.
The husband is a retired diplomat and is attempting to set up new businesses while the younger wife flies around the world doing…well, let’s start again keeping in mind that the characters are real life persons.
This is no normal couple though their life just seems like a classic example of two persons trying to juggle the stresses of coordinating their professional and private demands. Valerie is a CIA operative whose area of expertise is non proliferation and Joe is a retired ambassador, expert on Western African Nations, who is sent to Niger on Valerie’s ‘suggestion’ to investigate if the allegations that Iraq is buying yellowcake uranium from Niger is true.
Joe gets back after a thorough investigation and is very sure that no deal has taken place between Niger and Iraq. But this is just before the American Invasion of Iraq and Joe’s conclusions are completely ignored.
A little prior to this incident, Valerie and her colleagues are gradually gathering more and more information and evidence that Iraq is not producing weapons of mass destruction, but their conclusions are rejected by officials from the vice president’s office.Read more
Joe retaliates with an article in The New York Times. His attempt to set the record straight snowballs against him and his family. Valerie’s cover is blown and a lifetime of secrecy is brought out to the open. Except for Joe and her parents, no one else, even her closest friends knew of her actual profession. Her telephone begins to ring incessantly, she receives death threats and despite being calm and composed most of the time Valerie begins to find the situation hard to deal with, so much so that she briefly takes her children and goes and lives with her parents again as her marriage begins to crumble under the pressure.
The strength of Fair Game lies first and foremost in its two lead characters. Sean Penn is superb as an impulsive, warm and idealistic man who will stop at nothing to defend their reputation. And Naomi Watts, simply never ceases to amaze. Her ability to literally ‘become’ her characters is unique. She is Valerie, a woman whose personal and professional life is literally in ruins. Her colleagues do not talk to her anymore and her husband wants to fight the situation openly whereas she prefers to move on without stirring more trouble.
The Director, Doug Liman to whom we owe the unfortunate Jumper has definitely returned to form with this film. His directorial skills bring out the best in the entire cast and though at times Sean Penn may seem a little too intense and over the top in his acting, he is countered by Naomi Watts’ cool and calm reserve.
Fair Game is adapted from books written by the two main characters in the film. It is tempting to categorise it as a spy story. But actually its tale is common to us all, a system that abuses its power and fails to protect its citizens, friends who let you down and the realisation that the only way to win your battles is to fight them yourself, in other words the burdens of everyday life.
It has been a long time since a political ‘thriller’ has not made me want to snooze; fast paced and perfectly well acted and directed, Fair Game is better suited for a mature audience.
