D.C.’s Ready to Play

Kevin Macdonald’s excellent State of Play thrives not just on thrills, sharp dialogue, and a pitch perfect cast, but on its brilliantly use of background. The country’s capital lays behind each shot, not just as a backdrop but as an important player in the intricate plot and of each political thrill. From its shadowy shots of the monuments to its dimmed U Street corners to its messy newspaper offices, Kevin Macdonald’s camera captures D.C.’s underbelly and its shiny exterior equally well as he weaves his twisting plot around D.C.’s principal players: politicians, journalists, cops, and money.

Filling in the politician role is Ben Affleck in the first role I’ve liked him in since 2002’s Sum of All Fears. Playing Congressman Stephen Collins, a young political star investigating a corrupt and powerful defense company, Affleck fills the shoes of the earnest, ambitious congressman with surprising ease. He looks like a politician (a role – rumor has it – he’s looking for in real life). But Affleck’s Collin’s is no bright-eyed, bushy tailed do-gooder. He’s been caught up investigating a company that doesn’t want investigating and seeing a young aide he shouldn’t be seeing. And when the married Congressman’s red-haired research aide and mistress (Maria Thayer) gets pushed in front of a subway car all hell breaks loose.

Trying to clean up the congressman’s mess, is Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), his former college roommate and a seasoned reporter from the Washington Post – I mean Washington Globe – who thinks this may have been a corporate killing and who once slept with Collins’ wife. Ah, Washington. Crowe, in his typical fashion, dissolves into his character as the imperfect truth-seeker, torn between helping his friend and getting the story.

Filling in the other journalist role, Rachel McAdams returns to the screen as the young, “doe-eyed cub reporter” Della Frye, who helps Cal unravel the clues to the mistress’s murder. And what a welcome return it was. McAdams’ feisty naïveté and Crowe’s rumpled know-how blend for a perfect onscreen crime solving team.

And aiding them along was the brilliant Helen Mirren as their ball-busting editor, who stole many a scene with her acerbic wit. Top that with a memorably hilarious turn by Jason Bateman as a junkie and bisexual PR wonk, a tough and likeable performance by Harry Lennix as the detective on the case, and a subtle, tormented performance by Robin Wright Penn as Congressman Collins’ wife and you’ve got a supporting cast most movies only dream of.

But a cast is nothing without a script, and Matthew Michael Carnahan’s does well. Adapted from an acclaimed British mini-series and touched up by The Bourne Identity’s Tony Gilroy, the script had a lot working for it. It rushed a lot of plot into two hours, but never left you feeling lost. State of Play feels hectic, it feels sneaky, it feels greedy and earnest and desperate and idealistic. British though it may have originally been, it feels very D.C.

Gripping, twisting, but comprehensible, State of Play blended the gritty with the ideal, shedding light on everything from terrorism to corporate corruption to compromising wives and uncompromising journalists. It was about pursuing the truth without ever getting stuck up in easy clichés. It’s Washington, everyone’s got secrets. State of Play’s a pretty good one.

It’s D.C. done right.

See Cameron’s review here!