Truth can be stranger than fiction and sometimes fiction can be more entertaining than truth.

Shattered Glass is an absorbing tale about the cut-throat world of magazine journalism, where the scoop is everything. Based on fact, it's all the more startling for that.

Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) is a rising young feature writer on a mid Nineties political exposé magazine, The New Republic, read by key players - even, it is claimed, on Air Force One - for its incisive grip on current affairs. Inventiveness, bite and enthusiasm keep it ahead of the pack and the intuitive Glass epitomizes those qualities, sending staff into raptures on a weekly basis with news of his latest audacious scoops at editorial meetings.

Like Broadcast News, this is fly-on-the-wall territory, from the first hints of a story to the final headlines and back to sources. It's all the more timely right now, with the scandal of fabricated pictures in the national Press.

Sharply edited by writer/director Billy Ray, the film gradually reveals the increasing divide between a big magazine and a minnow website, a new editor and a writer, as one particular story uncovers senior staff rivalry, divided loyalties and major secrets.

A compelling and thoroughly watchable drama. Well worth it.