In DC, Even Film Nerds are Policy Nerds

It's universally known that Washington, DC is a company town and the company is government, but I was surprised to find that even DC's film nerds can't stop wonking off for an evening.

I attended an advanced screening of the new Joe Wright film, "Hanna," on Thursday night. The film is a fantasy spy thriller starring the stunning, but unpronounceable, Saoirse Ronan, the misspelled Cate Blanchett, and the wayward Eric Bana. The film was entertaining, and it was fun watching Ms. Ronan, backed by throbbing Chemical Brothers tracks, kick, punch, stab, and shoot her way across Africa and Europe as she seeks to settle some family scores.

The screening was generously sponsored by The Washington Post and they promised a film discussion and reception afterwards. Would the filmmakers be there? I doubted it. Would representatives of Focus Features comment on the continuing rise of butt kicking young heroines ("Kick-Ass," "Sucker Punch," etc.)? Perhaps, I thought.

No. The Post offered up their resident film critic, Ann Hornaday, Style section editor Ned Martel, and – wait for it – a living, breathing former spook! Peter Earnest, a 35-year veteran of covert operations for the CIA and Executive Director of DC's Spy Museum was on hand. Not too shabby.

Martel opened the discussion by asking Earnest how the filmmakers did at capturing the world of spies – a reasonable question to get the crowd warmed up. Earnest buried his tongue firmly in his cheek, where it would remain for the rest of the night, and answered as we all thought he would: "fun to watch, but not close."

Having studied film critically at high levels, and having attended numerous film festivals, press junket screenings, and film society events, I then expected the discussion to focus on the film itself.

But this is Washington, DC.

Questions from the audience covered CIA and NSA recruitment ads heard on the radio this week, finding a means for analyzing the patriotism of new intelligence recruits in the age of job-jumping young hipsters, whether women make better spies than men, and whether women have broken the glass ceiling in the intelligence community.

Really, people?

Perhaps the funniest element in all of this was that Earnest spoke at length on each question, but actually never answered a single one. Once a spy always a spy, I guess. (Or perhaps he's still active – wouldn't being the director of a spy museum be an outstanding cover?)

With the discussion going nowhere fast and buried in spy double-speak, (which differs from other Washington double-speak in that it is said more emphatically and forcefully and when parsed actually means all possible answers), I felt obliged to try to get the conversation back on a film track.

I threw a few questions out to Hathaway, specifically "how did she think the film would do?"

Perhaps she was caught up in the excitement of non-answer answers, or maybe she was thinking about the wine and hors d'oeuvres awaiting us nearby, but she didn't really commit to an answer. But this is Washington, so I played the role of good company man: I smiled, nodded, and moved on to the reception.