More Zero Dark Thirty Reviews

Bombs Away?

Here are a few more reactions to the November 25th initial screening of Zero Dark Thirty.

James Rocchi's review at BoxOffice is worth reading for his descriptions and insights. He notes the "star-free (and talent-rich) ensemble".

 Drew McWeeny Offers a detailed review at HitFix, calling the film stark and uncompromising. His comments on Jennifer’s performance: "Jennifer Ehle contributes a tremendous performance as another analyst on Maya's team, and I particularly liked the way they etched their growing relationship without needing to pump up the friendship in some artificial way." 

[Take a look at the comments section at this article for a possible source for Jennifer's character as discussed there by Marc and Mathias.]

David Poland has a Movie City News review in which he identifies the film in three acts, saying:  Bigelow creates three quite different worlds for each act: the foreign war, the polite suited war that is Washington, and the last, where she takes one of the most well-worn tropes of the film world, “the raid”.  

It sounds, from this article and other hints, that Jennifer's character is seen in the first act (only?).  He writes:  "The supporting cast – and everyone else is supporting the one character with significance in each of the three acts – is flawless. Clarke and Jennifer Ehle and Edgar Ramirez and Mark Strong kill it in the first act."

Regina Weinreich at Huff Post calls the film “Girl’s Night Out”. She likes the casting, saying: "an excellent cast including Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Joel Edgerton, and Jennifer Ehle, like Chastain, a fragile beauty. Although often seen in supporting roles, here Ehle is a CIA co-worker, a foil for the clear-headed Maya, who grows into her job. The casting is part of the brilliance of this movie, a sure nomination for Best Picture Oscar." 

[So, it appears Jennifer's character is less than clear-headed! Less so than Maya, anyway. One of yesterday's reviews called her 'chatty' among other quirks. I think this is going to be really good to watch.]

Kyle Buchanan  lists five things you need to know, including that “Chastain is the unambiguous lead of this staggeringly large ensemble, with Jason Clarke (The Chicago Code) and Jennifer Ehle (Contagion) providing the most sustained support as fellow bin Laden hunters.”

Roger Friedman  has a bit of Oscar buzz going:  ‘As far as actors go, Academy voters, and everyone else, should keep an eye on  some new names in the mix, from Scott McNairy in “Killing them Softly” to Jennifer Ehle in “Zero Dark Thirty” to John Hawkes in “The Sessions.”’

In another HuffPost we're given a sort of FAQ for Zero Dark Thirty. There's no mention of Jennifer directly but I kind of like to guess that the following quote might be about her character, given some of the hints about personality in other reviews. 
 “Zero Dark Thirty certainly isn't perfect -- most noticeably when a CIA agent who is meeting with an al-Qaeda source is way too excited about just how well this meeting is going to go. I mean, to the point that she's bragging that the president of the United States will have to be briefed after the meeting because of all of the wonderful information that's going to be shared. Needless to say, the meeting goes about as poorly as a meeting with a suspected terrorist can go."
[Could this be her character? It says ‘she’ and evidently isn’t Maya]


Enough hints have been dropped so far about Jennifer's (as yet unnamed) role to wonder about the mentioned exit, first act references, the possible source for the character, and a car exploding in the film's ad to speculate about a few things. Just sayin'.

Jon Weisman has posted a Variety review, along with award musings.

“Almost all major awards are in play: picture, director, original screenplay and lead actress, not to mention supporting actor (Jason Clarke) and supporting actress (Jennifer Ehle).”

[This reminds me a little of the talk around Contagion. It seems like she's due!]

Another photo from the Q&A