Film critic Scott Mendelson on Zero Dark Thirty:
All because [director and writer] Bigelow and Boal didn’t spoon-feed their opinions to the audience in a way that made for easy digestion. They didn’t have a fictionalized scene where a character explicitly explains to the audience how they got each piece of vital information over the eight years during which the film takes place. They trusted the audience to make the connections… One must remember that the film initially began back when Bin Laden was still alive and it was presumed that he’d never actually be caught. It was initially a Moby Dick-esque story of futile obsession, and I’d argue the film still stays on that path even with the new ending.
Moral ambiguity. Presenting complex issues without trying to fall on one political side or another. Forcing you, as the audience, to engage, debate, ponder what we’ve been doing with our foreign policy for the last twelve years. That’s what Zero Dark Thirty is all about (and at least partially what makes it great) and I agree with Mendelson regarding the Bigelow snub. Ridiculous.