Rosewater

Opens Fri., Nov. 14 at Sundance and 
other theaters. Rated R. 103 minutes.

Is irony a saving grace? Jon Stewart surely thinks so. He uses irony to channel his clear-eyed political fury on The Daily Show, and he’s directed a feature film that suggests irony is the only thing standing between us and madness. Rosewater is the reason Stewart disappeared from his late-night gig in the summer of 2013: He was in Jordan, directing a true story that has a stranger-than-fiction connection to The

Daily Show. The movie is about the Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, played by Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal. In 2009 Bahari was arrested by Iranian authorities while covering the disputed elections in Tehran; included in the “evidence” against him was a Daily Show segment in which he joked with comedian Jason Jones about being a spy. Obviously, this was proof of espionage.

Stewart, who also wrote the Rosewater screenplay (from Bahari’s book Then They Came for Me), smartly eases into the ordeal, first depicting Bahari’s home life in Toronto and his journalistic work in Tehran. His mother (Shohreh Aghdashloo) still lives in Iran, and he meets anti-government resisters as part of his reporting duties for Newsweek. Once in prison, his main tormentor (Kim Bodnia) obsesses over whether Bahari’s arthouse DVDs are actually pornography and the question of just how many Jews are running the world. Stewart relishes these absurdities, as you would expect. He presents Bahari’s turning point—the journalist was physically abused, as well as kept in solitary confinement—as the moment when he gives up sincerity and simply begins using comically exaggerated riffs to bewilder his captors. And there you see how Stewart connects to the material.

Rosewater too frequently has a dutiful quality, careful always to balance the negatives of the Iranian authorities with the positives of Iranian culture. The movie doesn’t announce the arrival of a born filmmaker, but it’s much better than a dilettante project—Stewart keeps a difficult storytelling subject moving right along. And there are sequences, like Garcia Bernal’s exhilarating solo dance at a crucial point in his imprisonment, that convey a real appreciation for the human element that survives amid political horror. Rosewater isn’t The Great Dictator, but it’s good enough. Stewart should keep his day job—in an era of timorous national journalism, his shtick is indispensable—but if he can somehow make a movie now and then, even better.

film@seattleweekly.com