Author: Kathleen DeMarse

“The ZERO DARK THIRTY raid is not so much a payoff for the events that have been building onscreen, but is a masterstroke of fate.” – from Roger Ebert’s review of ZERO DARK THIRTY

As a member of the audience for Kathryn Bigelow’s ZERO DARK THIRTY, you might be partial to dissecting the film on a human rights or political perspective. You can try to digest the torture scenes, but will likely end up clenching your arms around your torso in protest. You might growl at the deliberately misogynistic dialogues while empathizing with Maya as a stoic heroine. She is too often antagonized for being a proactive, strong woman, after all. You might scoff at some obscure historical inaccuracies, blatant hypocrisy, or roll your eyes at how some portion of the timeline has been glossed over. Either way, based on true facts, somewhere over the course of two and a half hours, you are appalled. Is it cathartic?