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Rosewater (2014)

Best in the moments of absurdity and satire, as you would expect from Jon Stewart. Some of the moments that seem incredible really happened, as the movie is based on the true story of Maziar Bahari's imprisonment in Iran. When his jailer tells him to call his wife to tell her to stop writing letters, he then says, "You have to dial 9 to get out."

The movie is straightforward storytelling of the tumultuous events surrounding the Iranian election in 2009 and what happened to BBC/Newsweek journalist Bahari. Stewart uses Jordan as a stand in for Iran, but also interposes real social media footage like the death of the young student Neda. He refilms Behari's mock interview with Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones, and also includes British Journalist Lindsey Hilsum playing herself.

Gael Garcia Bernal is very good as Bahari, and the always fantastic Shohreh Aghdashloo plays his mother. Kim Bodnia is Rosewater, Bahari's interrogator that he nicknames Rosewater for the cologne he always wears. Bahari is blindfolded except within his cell thus knows his questioner by smell.

The movie has some really great moments, like when Bahari dances in his cell to a remembered favorite song that he had shared with his sister. But overall, it somehow didn't have some needed dramatic tension for me. I'm sure also the limitations of the budget led to the claustrophobic feeling. We don't see much of how his wife or mother are handling his imprisonment. The birth of his child happened immediately after his freedom, and that is referenced in a post film on screen note. I wonder at how effective that might have been to have been shown -- but they likely didn't have the money for that added scene.

My young 13 year old son watches the Daily Show every night. He is a huge Jon Stewart fan, and had been begging to see this movie. I took both my sons, on a school night no less, to see an R movie. I have jaded eyes, but he is too young to remember anything about the Iranian election and it's aftermath. For him, he was seeing all these images for the first time, of the hope those Iranian young people had of change, and how it was all crushed. Jon Stewart wanted this story to be told and shown, and he got impatient waiting for the "right" person to take on the project, so he did it himself so the film wouldn't be a historical period piece but still of the moment.

I can quibble that other directors and screenwriters could have made a better film, but I'm still glad the film was made. Especially so that my son and other young people who don't know anything about the Green Movement in Iran could see it.