Fair Game de Doug Liman
The first film presented by American director Doug Liman in Competition at Festival de Cannes, the backdrop for Fair Game is the Plame-Wilson scandal of 2005.Valerie Plame (played by Naomi Watts), a CIA agent in the nuclear non-proliferation department, sees her reports on uranium trafficking between Niger and Iraq ignored by the Bush administration to justify launching a new war against Iraq. These facts are reported by her husband Joe Wilson (played by Sean Penn) via a New York Times editorial that proves to be highly contentious. A little while later, Valerie Plame’s cover is removed by the media, threatening her career and private life.
The expression “Fair Game” was originally used by the Church of Scientology to identify individuals or groups who had betrayed fundamental religious dogma. A comparison to Valerie Plame’s destiny, who was betrayed by the US government who voluntarily leaked her secret identity to the press, which is a federal crime in the United States. This theme of loss of identity seems dear to Doug Liman who made Bourne Identity in 2002, in which the main character who has amnesia progressively learns that he is part of the CIA, which tries to eliminate him.
You can find Doug Liman and the entire film crew for the screening tonight at 7:30 pm at the Grand Théâtre Lumière.