The rest of the film’s success falls squarely on Stewart and Moaadi. Their chemistry is pretty remarkable, considering they never once share a scene without something separating them. Stewart is able to pull off the frustration, loneliness, and outer toughness that the role requires, but knows when to let her guard down and let glimpses of the inner challenges shine through. Moaadi’s character is similar in that he uses his outward acts of aggression, misbehavior, and heckling to mask his feelings of despair and, presumably, knowledge of his own innocence.
Almost magically (he does have a profound love of Harry Potter, after all), Moaadi is able to infuse some of his scenes with a humor that should have absolutely no pace in GTMO, yet somehow it all works wonderfully and helps create a unique bond between Cole and Amir.
The movie’s soundtrack is as subtle and powerful as its cinematography, another example of the director allowing the external elements to enhance the moments between actors, but never interfere with or alter them.
The film has some flaws, however, particularly in its approach to explaining the rules of Guantanamo. Cole is our gateway character, so we spend the first ten minutes of the film learning the ropes from her point of view. The problem is, even if her training tour through the facility is accurate from a military standpoint, dramatically it reeks of exposition. There’s also one instance where Sattler tips the scales a bit too far into the realm of heavy-handedness; a montage that juxtaposes soldiers raising the American flag and saluting it and prisoners in a moment of prayer stands out as jarring amongst the subtleties of the rest of the movie.