Fair Plame

This past weekend I watched "Fair Game" starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts who play Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.Valerie is your typical working mom, she goes out for dinner with her friends, drives her children to school and flies to Baghdad a couple times a week to gain intelligence about possible weapon manufacturing programs in the middle east. Yes you guessed it sweet, blond Valerie is a CIA agent who spends her days determining if the aluminum tubes that she confiscated at the border are or are not going to be used by Iraqi terrorist to produce nuclear weapons.

I worked for two hours today and I'm spent.

Joe Wilson, the patriarch of the family is an X- United States Ambassador to Gabon, who spends his days visiting universities teaching students about international diplomacy. Joe's world is changed when his wife's office (so the CIA) calls Joe and asks him to travel to Africa and investigate the selling of yellowcake uranium. After going to Africa, Joe concludes that no sale of yellowcake could have been made. Joe comes back to America and tells his wife and and the other CIA agents what he has found.

Joe and Valerie's lives move along splendidly until the 2003 State of the Union Speech were Bush uttered those famous sixteen words that arguable lead the United States to war with Iraq. Essentially those sixteen words explained to congress that yellowcake uranium was being bought in Africa. But remember Joe went there, and there weren't any such deals happening. What the bush?

I'm not sure why I'm so excited about this movie and this TRUE story? I saw it twice in the theaters (once with the brothers, once with the husband) and I guess I am just impressed. This story brought international politics down to the reality of everyday life that we can all identify with. And maybe if we can identify with it, we can take it upon ourselves to help change the world and make it better. Politics and the bush administration aside, this story in it's essence is a love story about two people in extremely difficult political positions trying to navigate through life together. It made me remember that if you don't like something about your life you can stand up, say something and possibly change it.

Oh yeah and Penn and Watts were great. Twenty points for anyone who can name the other movie these two were in together? Tune in next week when I explore in detail how James Franco actually cuts off his arm! Method actors- can't live with them, can't live without them.