According to comments made by Lurie in The Truth Hurts, a bonus feature on the DVD release, his inspiration for the screenplay was the case of journalist Judith Miller,[2][3] who in July 2005 was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a leak naming Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative, but this was merely a starting point for what is primarily a fictional story.

It was scheduled to open in New York City and Los Angeles on December 19, but because distributor Yari Film Group filed for Chapter 11 protection, it was never given a theatrical release.

Rachel, who has no doubts about the veracity of the report, publishes her story and it becomes front-page news with the full support of editor Bonnie Benjamin and legal counsel Avril Aaronson.

Because revealing a covert operative's identity is a treasonous offence if committed by a government employee, and because any individual leaking such sensitive and secret information constitutes a threat to national security, special Federal prosecutor Patton Dubois convenes a grand jury to identify and prosecute that person.

A high-profile attorney, Albert Burnside, who was hired by the newspaper to defend Rachel and boasted that his personal friendship with Judge Hall will facilitate matters, is shocked when his client is jailed for contempt of court for failing to answer.

Rachel is aggressed by inmates in prison, but still steadfastly defends the principle of confidentiality, a position that eventually estranges her husband Ray, who like Dubois imagines that she's protecting a government employee, alienates her young son Timmy, and costs her embattled newspaper millions of dollars in fines and legal fees.

As Armstrong is taken to the prison facility, she reminisces about her time as a volunteer at Timmy's school: Once, on a field trip, she spoke to Van Doren's daughter, Alison.

The site's critical consensus reads, "A well-crafted political thriller, Nothing but the Truth features a strong cast that helps the real-life drama make an effortless transition to the big screen.

[7] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times thought the "confusing film mixes familiar plot points with some grievous nonsense, most of which involves the two women's irritatingly distracting home lives.

"[8] Not all reviews were positive as Los Angeles Times critic Sam Adams observed the film "isn't ripped from the headlines so much as it's pasted together like a ransom note, using scraps so small their origins are indiscernible.

"[10] In reviewing the DVD release, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded it 3.5 out of four stars and called it "a finely crafted film of people and ideas, of the sort more common before the movie mainstream became a sausage factory.