Rosewater movie review & film summary (2014)

The answer to that is provided in “Rosewater,” the gripping, intelligent directorial debut of TV personality Jon Stewart, who also wrote the screenplay, based on Bahari’s post-prison memoir, “Then They Came For Me.”

The connection between Bahari’s story and Stewart’s "The Daily Show" is made plain early in “Rosewater.” While he’s covering the election before being arrested, Bahari (expertly played by Gael Garcia Bernal) gives an interview to one of Stewart’s colleagues in which he jokes about being a spy. Later, in prison, he will try to explain to his brutal interrogator (excellent Kim Bodnia), a man he nicknames Rosewater for the cologne he wears, that this was all a joke and "The Daily Show" is satire, not news.

The concept of spy talk being offered up for laughs, though, is obviously one that Rosewater can’t grasp. And no wonder: it’s entirely outside the frame of reference of a pious torturer whose life is dedicated to the defense of Iran’s theocracy and its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. In one sense, the two mindsets we see colliding in that interrogation room–one medieval, one modern–form the crux not only of “Rosewater”s drama, but also of Iran’s ongoing struggle over its identity and place in the world.

After a prologue showing Bahari’s arrest, the film’s first 40 minutes detail what led to it. In London, Bahari leaves his partner Paola (Claire Foy), who’s pregnant with their first child, for what both assume will be a brief trip to Iran to cover its elections. In Tehran, people are in a fever-pitch of excitement over a contest that pits hard-line sitting president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against his popular reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

As Bahari sees, Mousavi has strong support among young, educated and urban Iranians, while Ahmadinejad, in addition to appealing more to the poor and unlettered, has bolstered his support with massive government hand-outs. Though Mousavi has been leading in the polls, there are ominous signs on several fronts. Supreme Leader Khamenei, who should remain neutral, has titled toward Ahmadinejad, and in the campaign’s one debate, Ahmadinejad adopts gutter tactics by smearing Mousavi’s wife.