"Who are you?" Asks C.I.A. Director James Gandolfini. "I'm the motherfucker that found this place sir", answers Maya played by Jessica Chastain in "Zero Dark Thirty." This little piece of dialogue came out of nowhere in a film that plays more like a sombre bit of hard boiled investigation. "Zero Dark Thirty" is fascinating in the way it pulls out the layers in the true life account of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. It sounds more like it's coming from an action movie than in a film which is probably the most controversial film of the year based on its depiction of torture. I'm not meant to debate the topic of torture in the film, perhaps I will keep that for another entry, this is to focus on the anchor of this film, and that is Jessica Chastain.
As with most procedural dramas of this nature, we are given the person who lets us follow the action and pick up clues where ever they see it. Think of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in "All the Presidents Men", or Jake Gyllanhaal in "Zodiac". These people are the ones who are obsessed with a mystery that engulfs their whole lives, and so it is with Chastain's C.I.A. analyst Maya.
We don't learn much of who Maya is, she isn't given a backstory really, other than a brief dinner sequence where she spares time out of her hunt to indulge in some small talk with one of her colleagues, but even that is interrupted by a bomb that goes off in the restaurant. Maya is defined by her job, her pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, it becomes her life, so much so that after she experiences a few setbacks and deaths of friends and colleagues, it becomes more of a personal vendetta.
There is a moment late in the movie, where Maya seems to be the only one still hell bent on finding Bin Laden, while the rest of the world seems to have moved on. She becomes more and more isolated but still being a pain in the ass to her higher bosses.
We watch Maya all the way through finally finding Bin Laden and when they have actually found him, the film takes an unexpected turn and focuses on the team who actually bring him down. Maya is left at the sidelines as a spectator, but she is given her moment of satisfaction when she gets to see the body.
"Zero Dark Thirty" was a film I had to ease into when I saw it. At first, I felt the torture scenes at the beginning were obligatory and not even offensive. I dared it to show me something I hadn't see before, and I think it eventually did with the help of Maya, she's the rock of the film, the emotional connection we get. It's difficult, at least for me to feel any emotional connection with a film that is more or less procedural, I like a good investigation as much as the next person, but it's the special ones that make you feel you've been through something with someone else, that's what Chastain does in "Zero Dark Thirty", and that's why I think it's the best female performance of the year.
It was a great year for women in film this year, I could've easily added Chastain's main Oscar competition Jennifer Lawrence who has shown just what a great actress she is by giving great performances in both "Silver Linings Playbook" and "The Hunger Games". I would also mention Michelle Williams as an unconventional modern women who is tempted to cheat on her husband in "Take this Waltz", Rachel Weiz giving perhaps what is her best performance as a woman who attempts suicide after leaving her husband for a young man in the army in the dreamy "The Deep Blue Sea", and I'll give props to young Quevanzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy, a ten year old girl who acts and looks as if she has seen it all in "The Beasts of the Southern Wild". I regret to inform readers, I have not seen the films of Oscar nominees Naomi Watts( The Impossible) and Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) so I can't give my opinion of their performances, but despite missing them, I would say not a bad year for women in film.
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