Daily Show host and comedian Jon Stewart’s directorial debut, Rosewater, is the story of Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian Journalist who was detained by the Iranian government for 118 days in 2009. Bahari, who had gone back to Iran to cover the elections, appeared in a Daily Show segment around the same time. Stewart is a competent director and Gael García Bernal does an excellent job portraying Bahari, but the film doesn’t really have the emotional resonance that you expect. Yes, the prison experience is harrowing enough, but you keep expecting it to get worse, and largely it never does. And the worst part of the experience, solitary confinement, is difficult to demonstrate in a 103-minute film. Still, Rosewater, though not a great film, is a good one, and presents a story about the oppression of journalists that everyone should know.
*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.
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