Unraveling the Plame Game

The most remarkable aspects of the otherwise unexceptional political drama, “Fair Game,� are that it purports to be based on facts and that it presents often searing scenes of a marriage under unrelenting pressure.

   But like all history — here the tale of an undercover CIA agent “outedâ€� by a nationally syndicated columnist — truth is in the minds and pens of the writers. And in the infamous case of agent Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, the pens are theirs: Both wrote best-selling books recounting their version of events that led to the criminal conviction of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and their near deification by opponents of the Iraq war.

   Alas, significant “factsâ€� in the film are simply untrue or greatly distorted. As the Washington Post reported in an investigative series, Plame never led a CIA program to encourage a group of Iraqi nuclear scientists to leave the country, a program the movie claims was shut down after her identity was publicized, leaving the scientists — and their families — to disappear at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s  henchmen. Nor did Wilson’s whistle-blowing piece in The New York Times, which led to his wife’s outing, affect the intelligence community’s views.

   That being understood, “Fair Gameâ€� is a compelling story of a marriage in which one partner — Plame (a very good, but somewhat one-note Naomi Watts) — can never be candid with her husband, Wilson (a superb Sean Penn, with slicked-back graying hair and glasses perched on the end of his nose). The scenes of Plame trying to be an ordinary mother to twins and of Wilson’s never really knowing where she’s going as she leaves their house with a suitcase over and over are piquant.

    These are two conflicting personalities: she cool, he hot-headed, trying to hold it together.

   Director Doug Liman (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith,â€� “The Bourne Identityâ€�) directs competently, although there is too much hand-held camera work and far too many closeups for me. The script by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth is taut. But all three have fallen for their subjects. Consider a scene in which hard-charging Wilson, on a whirlwind circuit of TV appearances and interviews to defend both their reputations from assault by the White House and leading Republicans, tells Plame that Vanity Fair wants to interview them and shoot a cover photograph. Plame declines. In fact, however, she did appear on the cover, in dark glasses and big hat, with Wilson in his convertible, an allusion to a famous shot of Grace Kelly, and did permanent damage to both their arguments and reputations.

   Then, too, it is odd that nothing but a mention is made of Robert Novak, the late, curmudgeonly, conservative columnist, who first revealed her name. How he learned her identity and decided to publish it are never considered. Only the nefarious machinations of Libby (David Andrews, smug and self-satisfied) are shown, and those are often confusing.

   The film is a little like an overripe fruit whose sell-by date has passed: The Plame-Wilson story is not key to understanding the lies and misrepresentations of the G. W. Bush war years; it is a minor footnote. And most viewers will come with preconceived opinions of the couple and their story anyway.

   On the other hand, it is an intense story of a marriage on the brink, with terrific performances from its two main actors. This makes the film worth seeing on human, if not political, terms.

     “Fair Gameâ€� is playing at the Triplex in Great Barrington, MA, and opens this week at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY. The film is rated PG-13 for profanity, a rating that always amuses me. How many American homes are profanity free?