Director: Peter Sattler
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi.
Running Time: 117 minutes.
Synopsis: Kristen Stewart stars as a guard in Gauntanamo Bay who strikes an uncomfortable bond with one of her prisoners.
Stop laughing. I can hear you chortling away at the very notion of Kristen Stewart starring in a powerful drama set in Guantanamo Bay. Stop that, it’s rude. Okay, so the TWILIGHT films were appalling. But that’s not her fault! Okay, so she has not exactly been brilliant in the past, but she’s doing the best she can with what she has. Will you please stop laughing.
Alright, you know what? Haters gon’ hate, but Kristen Stewart gives the performance of her life as Private Amy Cole in a character led drama that proves that she CAN act. Yes, she IS extremely good in this, so chew on those truth tomatoes. Private Cole has to emotionally disengage when dealing with the ‘detainees’ (not prisoners, because prisoners have rights) of Guantanamo Bay, which would be hard enough for any rookie, but as a woman she faces a different kind of antagonism from the inmates than her male counterparts experience. So it is with mixed feelings that she gradually gets to know Ali, a detainee whose love of literature peaks her interest, as scholarly folk are few and far between in her new environment. It is his use of Harry Potter as an analogy for good and evil that endears him to Cole and indeed us. He has yet to read the final book in the series and thus has no idea whether Professor Snape is a good or bad man. This simple frame work is the spark for some fascinating dialogue between the captive and Cole and essentially sets the film up as a two-hander. This is absolutely dandy because Payman Maadi is incredible as Ali. His employment of pregnant pauses, flights of rage, fear and humour in the face of the insurmountable horror his character faces portray a man of quiet dignity reduced to the state of a caged animal. It is this exploration that is at the heart of the film and Stewart aids him beautifully. That is not to downplay her role but, for the second half at least, this is Moaadi’s piece.
Sattler plays with space and silence, his camera following Cole on languid tracking shots as she patrols the cells. This creates a sense of alienation and tedium that drives both guard and ‘detainee’ to despair and makes for claustrophobic, if compelling viewing. There is able support from Lane Garrison as as Cole’s rather two dimensional but still detestable superior Corporal Ransdell, while John Carroll Lynch gets more substance to work with the weary but well meaning Colonel Drummond.
The delightful surprise is, of course, that Kristen Stewart is straight up really good. She gets to flex her acting muscles predominantly in the first half when she struggles to find her place in the male dominated world she now inhabits. The high point for her in this film, and thus her career, is the denouement with Moaadi which is unbearable tense, beautifully written and performed with grace and passion.
Still laughing?
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