Rosewater Trailer Is Beyond Intense: First-Time Film Director Jon Stewart Just Might Know What He's Doing

Based on a true story, Gael Garcia Bernal plays a London-based journalist imprisoned in Iran

By Natalie Finn Aug 29, 2014 8:38 PMTags
Jon Stewart, RosewaterOpen Road Films

So there was the sneak peek that Jon Stewart showed of his movie featuring Jason Jones playing himself as goofball Daily Show correspondent interviewing London-based journalist Maziar Bahari, played by Gael García Bernal.

Then there's the actual trailer for Rosewater, Stewart's feature directorial debut about the imprisonment and brutal interrogation of Bahari in Iran after he was accused of being a spy following a real-life Daily Show interview with Jones.

And it is intense.

Open Road Films

We see Bahari arriving in Tehran, where—as it has all over the Middle East—social media has changed the face of civic unrest and rebellion, making it easier than ever before to mobilize against the powers that be. There's the handy use of graphics on screen, like in Sherlock and Chef, to show what the people are tweeting about and otherwise sending over the WiFi waves.

That initial electricity in the air is palpable but then the film, based on Bahari's memoir Then They Came for Me, zeroes in on the journalist's arrest and subsequent 100-day imprisonment.

Rosewater comes from the nickname Bahari gave to his interrogator, who smelled of the contrastingly delicate stuff.

And in case you missed it, here's the not-sure-what's-real-and-what-isn't clip from Rosewater, featuring a more humorous scene with Jones, that premiered on The Daily Show this past week.

This Stewart kid might have a future in directing—as if we had any doubt. Though we would of course prefer that he not have to leave The Daily Show for months at a time to do it.

"I was unfamiliar with the filmmaking process, which can be very long," the longtime Comedy Central host told The Hollywood Reporter recently. "And I'm not built for that. Ultimately, I said to Maziar, ‘I feel like I know a path through this. I think I have a sense of what the individual story is but also what the larger thrust is. Let me just go f--king write this and let's be done."

Rosewater, also starring Shohreh Aghdashloo, hits theaters Nov. 7.