A driven young journalist digs into an important but mundane matter of underfunded school budgets and finds herself with the corruption scoop of the decade, going right to the heart of the presidential election campaign. Do not worry, I have not spoiled the film. This is all within the first ten or so minutes.
What plays out after is, unfortunately, not the tight, high-stakes, intelligent journalism thriller one might have expected from someone who spent significant time with an inside view of the political world during the Obama campaign, but a sleepy, phoned-in drama where critical plot points come about by people making obvious and out-of-character mistakes, not because they follow from the events or character psychology, but because the plot needs specific things to happen. After a promising start with appearances from actors with an excellent track record in the genre, the film dozes off into half sleep.
Brian Cox does what he can with a character that never gets much development beyond the cliché of the jaded old hand with rough edges (with a signature order of a steak cooked not just rare, but bloody) who grudgingly becomes the mentor of the plucky young talent. Timothy Busfield is wasted in a minor role with very little screen time.
The shining exception is Jodie Turner-Smith in the lead role, who manages to infuse her character with a lot more complexity than the manuscript provides for. Her Eli is simultaneously a hungry and intelligent young journalist with a reckless streak, and green, a little out of her depth, and believably vulnerable. It is just a shame she is stuck in a film that does not repay her efforts.
In the end, The Independent becomes a sleepy and forgettable repetition of plot ideas we have seen before and a reminder that we live in a political climate where truth is once more much stranger than fiction.
