Rosewater

I knew next to nothing about Rosewater going in to my screening for this movie. I didn't know the story too well, though I did hear it was a great one. After having seen this movie, I can say that Rosewater is a well-acted and very interesting film that just falls short of being great. The true story follows Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist who is captured in Iran for over 100 days because the government thinks he's a spy. As I stated before, I didn't know much about this event, so this whole movie was a surprise for me. I found that the story was incredibly interesting and mostly very well told. There are some very emotionally powerful scenes that had a few members of my audience in tears. The acting in this movie is top notch. Most of the actors are fairly unknown and all give great performances, especially the main character and the man who plays Rosewater (the inspector) They really capture their real-life characters very realistically. First-time writer and director Jon Stewart does a surprisingly great job. The movie is well shot and very well written. However, the movie isn't without its problems. The biggest fault about this movie is the tone. It shifts from dark and depressing to hilarious and lighthearted in seconds, and just doesn't feel right. The movie also felt pretty long, even though it was only 1 hour and 45 minutes. There was also something about the movie that made it feel a little cheap. Overall, Rosewater is a very interesting and well acted drama. Even though the tone is all over the place, it is worth seeing at matinee price. RATING: 6.8/10.