MovieChat Forums > State of Play (2009) Discussion > Rachel McAdams' character was useless.

Rachel McAdams' character was useless.

posted 13 years ago by scrapmetal7
8 replies | jump to latest

I liked RM but her character shouldn't have been in this movie. She was just a pest.

[–] jxh13 13 years ago

Can't agree, bud. Part of the theme is the mentoring of a a new journalist, and a blogger, no less, by a traditional reporter. I thought it was inspired to have Crowe show her the ropes, rather than have them be Woodward & Bernstein, and she was well cast and played the role well. We kind of see the process through her eyes, and she allows Crowe to explain things to her as believable exposition.

With the recent demise of print journalism, I like that they took some extra time to show how investigative reporters work, and to make it a learning experience for her. They work well together, I think.

[–] scrapmetal7 13 years ago

OK, but why should that be part of the theme? She played the role well, but the role didn't add anything of value to the story. She was just an annoyance. The action is Crowe's doing this investigation. The whole mentor thing is pedestrian and cliche and unwelcome.

[–] Zebblin 12 years ago

Her character was there to provide "believable exposition" like he just said. Someone to ask the questions for the audience member.

[–] gb901 12 years ago

Her character was an illustration of contemporary journalism. Newspaper circulation has plummeted in recent years due to spiralling costs and the advent of cheaper less intensively researched online blogs, ie wikinews etc. To compete, established newspapers now have their own online sites.

[–] SpanishRicky 13 years ago

Rachel McAdams on screen is never useless!

[–] mspatera 12 years ago

She was one of those characters that have to be in the film so that the lead isn't talking out loud to himself all the time. In 3 Days of the Condor, the Faye Dunaway character, who was not in the book, was added so that Robert Redford isn't talking to the audience. In old movies, they used voice-over narration for this purpose (Double Indemnity & many films noir), but that's not in style much now. In a novel, the reader is inside the characters head, so the extra character is unnecessary.

[–] debabrata4747 12 years ago

I completely agree with you, all she did was to follow him around and irritate the hell out of the audience.... in the hospital she stole in to ask question to a guy who just came out of a coma because she "wanted to ask a few questions" .. totally unethical and in the end too her name was on the report purely because Russel Crowe out it there, she had no clue about the real story ... it was amusing when Crowe asked her to send it in , it seemed as if he asked her because it gave her something to do and give her a sense of false importance in the whole affair

[–] cashman1955 12 years ago

This was a politically liberal movie. Libs hate bloggers, largely because they are conservative and give libs a hard time. They made the R character a blogger and also a bit of an airhead at the beginning. Get it? You can trust the print journalist (WaPo) but you can't trust a blogger. They could have had R just be a newbie reporter at the newspaper, but that would not have served any political propaganda purpose.