I started writing this review last night with the Oscars still going on, having seen Zero Dark Thirty the night before (I will have some separate comments on other Oscar choices). I went to see it despite having some trepidation about doing so. On the one hand, I had enjoyed Hurt Locker a lot. On the other, I have resented the zealous pursuit of folks who illegally downloaded Hurt Locker (which still is *not* available for streaming on Vudu) and much more importantly was concerned about Zero Dark Thirty’s depiction of torture as having contributed decisive information in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Having now seen the Zero Dark Thirty, I agree that the writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow seem to want to have it both ways. They appear to be striving for maximum authenticity and start with actual taped calls from 9/11 and a note that the movie is based on “first hand accounts.” Yet the majority of first hand accounts suggest that torture did no play a role in finding Bin Laden and the movie repeatedly suggests otherwise and gives no voice to any criticism of torture. The only potentially redeeming part here is that in doing so, the movie has brought a subject back that might otherwise have been forgotten and has led to renewed calls for publishing the Senate Intelligence Committee’s classified 6,000 page report.

As I had read a lot of the commentary on the torture issue previously I wound up focusing more on a different aspect of the movie: the depiction of the central character, the young CIA analyst Maya played by Jessica Chastain. She is one of the strongest female characters in a movie that I have seen in recent years and is drawn in stark contrast to both the men and women surrounding her. She is shown as competent (knowing names, histories, tactics etc better than anyone else), committed (not giving up despite countless obstacles), in control of her fear (spoiler alert: backing up a car into a compound while under fire), outspoken (doesn’t hold back her thoughts even among a group of all male superiors) and more.

The contrast with Jessica, the other female analyst, played by Jennifer Ehle, is quite striking. Jessica is shown as easily giving in to superiors, eager to show that the official policy of offering large rewards can be made to work and even vainly considering that one of her meetings might have the attention of the President (spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well for Jessica). In fact Maya is shown as stronger than the men around her. Many of them are depicted as indecisive and only Maya’s tenacity leads them ultimately to action. Maya is a kind of alpha female and the point is driven home when she has dinner with Jessica. Jessica asks Maya whether she has gotten together with one of the male characters and in response Maya essentially rolls her eyes.

Put differently Maya’s strength is one where she has chosen to act in a largely male society around her not by trying to change that society wholesale but by succeeding within it (which is an important change in and of itself). It seems fair to assume that the Maya character is at least in part informed by Kathryn Bigelow’s own career in Hollywood. With these thoughts about the Maya character forming in the back of my mind I read Maureen Dowd’s opinion piece about Sheryl Sandberg in the Sunday New York Times. And I was struck by how both men and women still seem not to know how to react to a strong woman who chooses to succeed in that way. Seems like a perfectly legit choice to me.