Rotten
The main question Rosewater grapples with is whether Stewart can hack it as a filmmaker. The answer: sort of?
Esther Breger, The New Republic
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Rosewater
Overview
In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly come back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
76%
Tomatometer
Rotten
Rosewater certainly has merit as an act of atonement on Stewart's part and a tribute to people like Bahari... In the end, however, the movie needs to stand on its own, apart from its noble intentions and the popularity of its writer-director.
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Fresh
The hard-focus clarity of the images (Bobby Bukowski did the cinematography) leads to an intimacy with anguish that passes into expressionism.
David Denby, New Yorker
Fresh
This is Jon Stewart's directorial debut; the talk show comedian has a handle on the material and conveys it clearly.
James Berardinelli, ReelViews
Fresh
Rosewater ... has an urgency that's all about the storytelling smarts of its first-time writer-director.
Bob Mondello, NPR
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