Runtime: 2 hours, 37 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Quick Impressions:
I’ve got to say, sitting in a darkened movie theater watching CIA operatives interrogate terrorists while all around me my fellow Americans munch popcorn and slurp drinks is a pretty surreal experience. Even putting aside what Zero Dark Thirty is trying to convey, just the act of watching it makes you think. What do some people sacrifice for our freedoms? And whose torture/death/life has made possible my lifestyle of sitting in the dark, eating junk food, and forming my own impressions of Hollywood’s take on reality?
Going into the movie, I knew only what I’d briefly heard on the news about bin Laden’s killing back when it happened. As someone who writes movie reviews, I definitely went in invested in determining if Jessica Chastain deserves to win a Best Actress Oscar and if Kathryn Bigelow was (like Ben Affleck) snubbed in the Director category (or merely undeserving). And of course, I was curious to see firsthand evidence of this (much media inflated) “torture controversy.”
These kinds of concerns all meant far more to me than finding out what actually happened to Osama bin Laden. Why did they bury him at sea so quickly? After the movie, my husband and I were discussing the fact that we still don’t know, and the movie (of course) doesn’t address this at all. But you know what? I don’t want to know. I’m perfectly happy to sit in the safety of my cave and watch the shadows projected on the wall while I munch my popcorn and remain both untortured and untorturing (directly, at any rate).
Sometimes, I think to myself in dismay, I haven’t accomplished much in my life, and then I see films like this and think, Thank God! I cannot emphasize enough how strongly I never want to do anything politically important or be anyone worth assassinating or interrogating.
Zero Dark Thirty is a movie full of people doing significant things. Because of the work they do, lives are saved and lost. (Stakes that high would give me a panic attack. I could never work for the CIA.) The movie is fast-paced, well-plotted, consistently engrossing, and absolutely anchored by a star-making (and yes, Oscar worthy) lead performance by Jessica Chastain.
I was not a huge fan of The Hurt Locker. (In fact, I found it insanely overrated and definitely not the Best Picture that year, but that may be because I watched it at home on DVD while trying to keep my infant daughter from looking at the screen during tummy time.) In my estimation, Zero Dark Thirty is a far superior movie, more compelling, more entertaining, more important. Why Kathryn Bigelow didn’t get an Oscar nomination is beyond me. (Actually—here’s a conspiracy theory I can get behind!—isn’t it odd that all the directors most likely to give Steven Spielberg a run for his money didn’t get nominated? Don’t lots of those Academy members get together and vote in blocks? The truth is out there! And don’t tell me that more people felt passionate (and positive) about Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour than Argo and Zero Dark Thirty because that kind of logical thinking is no fun at all!)
The Good:
Jessica Chastain’s performance anchors this movie, and the whole thing works only because the character of Maya is so believable. (I’m not saying that I believe everything in this “true” story is true. I’m just saying that the character feels authentic, and the mission clearly matters to her. Through her confidence and determination, Maya convinces the other characters to believe in her passion project, and she convinces the audience, too.) Without this charming CIA’s answer to Captain Ahab, the movie would lose its thread and (if the Zero Dark Thirty is to be believed) the hunt for bin Laden would have lost traction and direction as well.
I must admit that when bin Laden’s death first made news, I was bewildered (and, honestly, horrified) by the insane outpouring of glee from around the nation. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to diminish the horror of 9/11 or to suggest that those who lost loved ones didn’t deserve closure, and I know that revenge is a dish best served cold and everything, but I really felt distanced from everybody’s giddy rejoicing and started to wonder if something was wrong with me. I’m not saying killing the man who instigated so many innocent deaths was the wrong thing to do (though in some ways, having him stand trial would have been more satisfying if logistically difficult and potentially risky). It was the public’s reaction I felt alienated from. I mean, hunting him down took so long, and it’s not as if each one of us outsmarted and killed him personally, and…I don’t know just so many things. Relief, I understand, but jubilation and gloating? It’s not like we destroyed the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Terrorists continue to exist whether the old man on dialysis has been shot or not.
But while watching the movie, I could definitely appreciate why finding and killing bin Laden was so important to Maya. And when she gave an impassioned speech, saying, “You don’t understand,” the importance of taking out bin Laden and his continuing role as a figurehead actively encouraging attacks against the United States (and other Western powers), I believed that, too. You’re right, Maya, compared to a woman who has spent her entire adult life in the CIA and essentially a decade learning how terrorist cells operate while tracking al Qaeda operatives in the Middle East, I know absolutely nothing about Osama bin Laden’s world and the importance of taking him out. Because of Maya, I feel like I got the point of the entire operation for the first time ever.
I attribute the film’s success in this area to the skill of the screenwriter, the director, and the lead actress. (And that’s why most films work, isn’t it? With a great script, skillful direction, and solid performances, any movie is bound to be good!)
Chastain’s isn’t the only performance that makes the movie exceptional, however. From the entire cast, the performances are universally strong. Particularly captivating is Jason Clarke as Maya’s early mentor and later colleague Dan. I have to say as Howard Bondurant in Lawless, Clarke impressed me less than anyone else in the cast. He was mediocre and unremarkable there, but here he’s marvelous, so good that he probably deserved an Oscar nomination. (But so did Dwight Henry and Leonardo DiCaprio to name only two of many. This year, there were far more worthy supporting turns than slots to honor them.) In many ways, Clarke’s character was far more compelling than Maya’s. (Certainly, he’s harder to understand. What to make of someone who routinely tortures in such a professional manner and then goes off and feeds an ice cream cone to monkeys? If he had stuck around, he would have stolen the movie, but, of course, a guy like that can only end up in Washington D.C.)
For most of the movie, Chastain’s and Clarke’s characters dominate the story. Early on, the only other character who gets nearly as much of the audience’s attention is fellow CIA operative Jessica, a likeable if flawed character played perfectly by Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth Bennet to Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy.) Joel Edgeton (so prominent in the previews) shows up really, really late but practically carries the last thirty minutes of the movie when Chastain (by necessity) fades into the background for a bit.
Rounding out the cast, a number of supporting actors show up and get the job done without being distracting. I love Mark Strong. He comes in fairly late, but he’s powerful in this as in everything. Mark Duplass and James Gandolfini are also strong in relatively small parts. Kyle Chandler seems like he’s playing the same part here he did in Argo. (I realize that technically, he’s not, but he really seems like basically the same guy. He really does it well, though.) Oh, and Harold Perrineau is also in the movie. He played Mercutio in Romeo + Juliet, and from the moment he showed up, I spent the rest of the movie racking my brains (in vain) trying to remember where I’d seen him. (Most people probably know him from Lost, but I’ve never seen it.)
As I was watched the movie, I was so captivated by following the “true” story that I didn’t stop to think about Reda Kateb’s performance. I sort of took him for granted, in the moment basically believing he really was Ammar, the first guy they interrogated. As I think about this, I realize that Kateb’s performance must have been pretty great since I was able to lose myself in the story this way and think of him only as his character. (Through most of those scenes I was preoccupied with the problem of the torture and the puzzling character of the torturer. That the torture victim was also an actor giving a performance somehow got sidelined by my brain, but that’s probably a testament to his excellence in the role.)
Zero Dark Thirty also benefits tremendously from Alexandre Desplat’s wonderful score. (Like my other two favorite scores—for Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Master—this one missed a nomination, but Desplat is nominated for scoring Argo.) (If you ask me, Zero Dark Thirty, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Moonrise Kingdom, The Master, Anna Karenina, and Skyfall should have been the nominees for Original Score. But that’s six already, and I have to admit Life of Pi has a lovely score, too, and I know nothing about music. So there you go.)
Sound is a real strength, too. Not only does the movie give us realism in gunfire, but it also makes the most of sounds like the clacking of computer keys, the rustle of the wind. It uses sounds to transition fluidly from one scene to the next.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Jessica Chastain):
I’ll be honest, I loved Silver Linings Playbook, and until I saw Zero Dark Thirty, I wanted Jennifer Lawrence to win the Oscar, but now I’m torn. In terms of sheer merit, Chastain’s performance is more difficult and better. (Because of the weird amount of controversy this film is generating, I actually still expect Lawrence to win, but I find Chastain’s work more deserving.) In any event, I love them both and think they’re tremendously talented Hollywood newcomers. (I also think that Jessica Chastain spent at least half of her Golden Globes acceptance speech trying to drive home the point that Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t deserve to win the Oscar because she’s only twenty-two, but I’ll talk more about all that in the Oscar write-up I’m working on.)
Chastain is versatile for sure, though she’s got to be a lot like her character in terms of being consumed by professional drive because how on earth could she have a satisfying personal life when she’s played major roles in 147 movies in the past forty-eight months? To me, Anne Hathaway cutting her hair and eating dry oatmeal (which is delicious, incidentally) is a lot less impressive than Jessica Chastain coming out of nowhere to appear in 85 percent of all prestige pictures released in the past two years. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Anne Hathaway, but I also love dry oatmeal. So does my husband, and nobody has commented on our frighteningly waifish look yet, so I’m assuming Hathaway didn’t pull off the Fantine physique on dry oatmeal alone. Either that, or we’re eating the wrong brand of oatmeal.)
As the relentlessly driven Maya, Chastain carries the movie (unlike Lawrence, who plays the lead actor’s female complement). Were the character of Maya not totally believable, Zero Dark Thirty would quickly lose its audience and become a film more of the cinematic caliber of Act of Valor (a movie with engaging, authentic action, and weak performances by non-professional actors playing formulaic characters). Maya is a difficult character to play because she’s the type who internalizes everything and always remains professional. If she acts out, she acts out in self-righteous rage, the one emotion that her male colleagues will respect.
Despite playing such a restrained character, she gets a lot of showy moments with scenes dedicated to her rage, grief, panic, and tears, and Chastain nails all of these scattered moments of variation. The rest of the time, she’s all driven intensity.
I expect her Oscar clip to be the scene where she’s screaming at Kyle Chandler, but that’s not my favorite. Two moments really stand out to me—when she first speaks to Reda Kateb in an early interrogation scene, and when she starts writing with her red marker. The red marker stuff really encapsulates the character, as far as I’m concerned, and these moments are among the most difficult because if the actress goes too far, the integrity of the character goes out the window. Chastain pushes it, but just the right amount.
Best Scene:
Others will have different favorites, but I personally liked the bit with Jason Clarke and the monkeys the best. If Mark Boal wins a screenwriting Oscar, it will be at least partially because of this scene. Kathryn Bigelow hasn’t been nominated for Director, of course, but the movie really shines again (and shows the work of a talented directing/writing team) when Jennifer Ehle’s character waits for her source. The suspense (and unsettling suspicion of the outcome) that we get here is wonderful. We know what’s going to happen, but that’s only because of well-placed cinematic clues. Obviously these events are interesting in their own right, but they’re captivating because of the work of the writer and director.
Best Action Sequence:
The movie devotes twenty-five of its final thirty minutes entirely to action. Normally, long action sequences bore me, but since this is the payoff of the entire film, of course, it’s all quite riveting (though unfortunately, the long stretches without much dialogue gave me a lot of time to decompress and suddenly begin to question what I had taken on faith before while trying to keep up with the story).
The Torture:
I’ll address this quickly since it’s become a huge talking point for some reason. The movie does show waterboarding (though it’s not particularly traumatic to watch unless you’ve been waterboarded yourself). The film doesn’t show anything gruesome, like fingernails being pulled off with hot pliers. You don’t have to wince (unless you’re anti-torture and ashamed of your country). Most of the torture involved is primarily psychological and demoralizing. (Though of course, it’s not comfortable to listen to blaring music, hold your arms up for hours, be stuffed into a box, have the temporary sensation of drowning.) So being squeamish is no reason not to watch this movie. It isn’t torture porn.
Of course, some might argue that it’s far more insidious than torture porn (which is pretty transparent) because it gives viewers a positive feeling about the torture and leads them to identify with the torturer. After seeing the movie, I will say that the principal characters in the film do seem to be in favor of enhanced interrogation techniques. And they do seem to resent the interference of the Obama administration that (by cracking down on torture) is making it harder for them to gather reliable information.
But if that’s what Kathyrn Bigelow is being criticized for, then I have to think that the people doing the criticizing are being deliberately obtuse. How can an artist make a realistic film about any serious subject without giving voice to ideas that some may find objectionable? After watching the entire film, I would not immediately conclude that Kathryn Bigelow is an enthusiastic advocate of torture. Maybe people are used to movies being so clumsy and heavy-handed that all of the characters do nothing but continually parrot the exact views of the writer and director. If Bigelow wanted to spread the word, “Hooray for torture! Let’s all waterboard with wild abandon!” then surely she wouldn’t have deliberately included so many problematic moments in her movie that add up over time and lead discerning audience members to begin asking uncomfortable questions. For pete’s sake, isn’t there something to be said for artistry, for ambiguity? There’s a reason that screenplays are far more often adapted from novels than from tracts.
Personally, I think the subject of torture in general is a little simpler than some make it out to be (or at least less of a talking point). Is torture moral? No! Of course not! There’s no room for debate here. Torture is immoral. Is torture necessary? That’s not a question for me to answer. I sit in the dark, watch movies, and eat popcorn. But as someone who has extensively studied medieval and Renaissance history, I will emphatically say that torture certainly is not new, and I don’t think that it’s ever going away completely. As someone who hopes never to torture or to be tortured, I am exceedingly glad that certain groups very vocally oppose torture so that forward thinking governments have the sense to disavow it publicly and are encouraged by public scrutiny to practice it in the utmost secrecy only when absolutely necessary. But it seems silly to keep asking if torture is wrong. Of course it’s wrong. That’s the wrong question.
I do think that the movie may be guilty of encouraging less critical viewers to believe that torture is just fine because the “bad guys” deserve it. (I don’t think this is what Kathryn Bigelow is saying, but she can’t control how every viewer interprets her movie. And of course, this is a good incentive not to be a “bad guy.”) The trouble is, the movie shows us only the interrogations of subjects who are important, guilty, and withholding valuable information that they actually know. What about the people who are telling the truth when they say, “I don’t know?” but must be broken anyway to confirm their lack of knowledge? What about the people who are apprehended by mistake (the “Cinna the poets” of the torture world)? What about the interrogators who aren’t as professional as Dan and Maya?
Zero Dark Thirty never shows us any instances of torture not being necessary, or not being effective, or not being applied to the correct people. That is a serious moral failing of the movie because not everybody approaches a film with the same inclination (or skills) for critical analysis. Some people just believe everything they see. If they see the good guys torturing the bad guys and winning in the end, then they believe that torture is okay.
There’s a reason that torture is usually done in secret at secret locations by people whose entire professional life is a secret. The public is not supposed to know. Maybe the movie shows too much reality for its audience’s own good. Then again, maybe people just need to shut up and focus on real human rights abuses instead of the content of Hollywood movies.
A really bold movie would have shown us the same interrogation scenes from the point of view of the terrorists—like really from their viewpoint, showing how they sincerely believed in the goals of their terrorism, showing how they believed the United States had hurt them/become corrupt/deserved punishment. Nobody would make that movie, of course. You would have to be insane to make a movie like that. But if somebody did, that would be a real controversy. This is mostly a contrived, trumped up, fake controversy, and I find it kind of annoying.
Why aren’t more people talking about the fact that this young woman was recruited out of high school by the CIA and allowed to spend her entire life obsessing over Osama bin Laden? That’s what I want to know.
Other Things that Bothered Me:
The biggest problem with Zero Dark Thirty is that it’s fully engrossing when you’re watching it, but after it’s over, you find yourself asking, “Okay, so just how true was that true story?”
It doesn’t help that it came out the same year as Argo (which is hard to forget because it’s scored in a similar way by the same person, and Kyle Chandler seems to be playing the same part).
At the beginning of the movie, we are pointedly told that this is a true story based on the first hand testimony of key people involved. Then at the end of the credits, we get a huge message saying, “Okay, actually tons of stuff in this movie was just made up for dramatic purposes and isn’t true at all.” We’ve all heard by now that the filmmakers were given an unprecedented amount of access to relevant information by the CIA (an organization known for, if nothing else, its forthright dealings and complete transparency in all things). But then it’s also emerged recently that the acting CIA director has pointedly called out the movie for making torture seem like a more essential technique than it actually was in locating bin Laden.
Okay, so if this is a “true story,” then why is the CIA bringing all this wonderful information to our attention? What is their motivation for telling so much, and what else are they withholding? And if what the CIA director is now saying is true, then why would the filmmakers make up a whole bunch of stuff about the necessity of torture resulting in a scandal that’s hurting the film’s Oscar chances (though possibly helping its box office take)?
What exactly is going on here? After some discussion, my husband and I decided that we are just going to have to wait thirty years for Ben Affleck’s son to make another movie. (And if he does, I hope we’ll see local police on hang gliders chasing the retreating helicopter through the air and almost catching it.)
Also, there’s this weird vibe toward the end of the movie that suggests that sexism may be working on Maya’s behalf, this sense of, “Isn’t she cute, flying off the handle?” and “What a sparkplug! We’re not sending her for a psych evaluation because she’s female.” “Gosh, isn’t she smart for a girl? I’m the kind of man who appreciates smart women. Let’s send in a team with no evidence.” It’s weird. Maya does everything to can to demonstrate that she’s a valuable part of the organization and that the biological fact that she’s a woman doesn’t even matter. But clearly, it does matter to the men working with her. They obviously respect her for all the right reasons, but sometimes I think they believe her for some awfully dubious ones. I’m not knocking the movie (necessarily). This all seems pretty realistic to me (but I’m not a CIA agent). I’m just wondering if Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal are intentionally drawing attention to this odd dynamic, or if this is just the type of information the real “Maya” and company provided.
Overall:
Zero Dark Thirty is intense and entertaining. You can’t look away, and the story delivers everything that it promises. Jessica Chastain gives a strong (and definitely Oscar worthy) lead performance. Though given far less screentime, Jason Clarke is very nearly just as good. And Kathryn Bigelow deserves another Oscar nomination for directing. (She just didn’t get one.) Don’t take children.