I never saw any of the Twilight movies, so if there was a reason to not like Kristen Stewart, I never got muddled up in it.
She has been in some excellent movies, most recently Love Lies Bleeding, which I loved. She was good in Spencer, Personal Shopper, The Runaways, and The Clouds Of Sils Maria, to name a few.
I try to land in most movies blind — this is one that I have seen in lists of recommended films for me.
I am glad I got to experience the slow acclimation to where we are at Stewart’s Amy Cole goes through. The film felt very timely, which is an upsetting thing to realise. Payman Maadi’s Ali matches her power with his own performance. Films like this are important — they put a human face on both the soldiers and their enemies in this. I think most who would watch this would already be of a mind that this kind of set up, with detainees held in a place they can never be freed from, in these kinds of conditions, is not ideal. Could it reach and change the mind of someone who thinks Camp X-Ray was a good thing? Maybe.
Art says what it says, and the journey it takes, and the journey people take with it, is often beyond the control of the creator. That this film can reach out a cross a decade and still have an impact is testament to art’s power.