We know at the outset that Bahari, who was held for 118 days, will ultimately be released from prison, but while he is held captive, his captors try to break his will, forcing him to make an absurd confession that his job as a Newsweek journalist was really a cover for being a CIA operative responsible for dispensing propaganda.
(As an aside, the media criticism contained Bahari's response to this accusation provides one of the more amusing moments in the movie: "The American government doesn't control Newsweek magazine. And, to be honest, it's not even worth controlling. This weekly model of magazines is completely outdated. There are better ways of doing propaganda—through the internet, in the blogs, Twitter. There's many things. The game has changed completely.")
Bahrain's captors press him to explain his travels around the world and to the United States, but on this, Bahari ultimately scores a triumph over his captors, explaining that his travels throughout the world weren't part of a CIA mission, but were rather personal indulgences to feed his addiction to "massages" (yeah, those kind of massages). His main interrogator, played by Kim Bodina, is absolutely riveted as Bahari tells him of an imaginary cornocupia of massage parlors in Fort Lee, New Jersey, temporarily forgetting that he is supposed to be a totalitarian ideologue as he listens to Bahari's accounts of made-up sexcapades.
Rosewater is not a heavy-handed, dogmatic movie, though its sympathies clearly lie with Bahari and not his captors, as they should. But it doesn't gloss over the fact that before the Iranian revolution, the government was equally repressive—and was supported by the United States. Bahari and his sister were both imprisoned by the post-revolutionary Iranian government, but his father was imprisoned by the the Shah, and in one scene, America's support for the Shah—including the CIA-backed coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh—is detailed.
Stewart certainly could have chosen an easier story to tell than Bahari's, or he could have embellished it to turn it into a Hollywood suspense thriller, but he chose the more difficult path of telling a subtler, but more honest story. Stewart does, however, find room to sprinkle moments of humor throughout the movie—even including a brief appearance of The Daily Show. It's a strong directorial debut for Stewart and probably won't be his last.
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