The International Trailer for State of Play. The plot will be similar to that of the original six-hour program, retaining several main characters, but condensing and changing certain aspects to fit the two-hour format. The film is set in Washington, D.C. and tells of Stephen Collins (Affleck), a fast-rising United States Congressman with ambitions to become his party's presidential candidate. This goal is threatened after his mistress (a former research assistant) is found dead in suspicious circumstances, while right-wing opponents to Collins' campaign for social reform attempt to use the scandal to kill his political career. During a probe into a series of seemingly unrelated murders, Cal McCaffrey (Crowe), an investigative journalist and Collins' former campaign manager, finds himself tasked with solving the case, becoming romantically involved with the Congressman's estranged wife (Wright Penn) in the process.