Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic here with a Slate spoiler special podcast on Rosewater, the new political drama directed by John Stewart. And joining me from D.C. is Dave Weigel. Hi, Dave.

Hi, Dana. You are a reporter at Bloomberg Politics. I am. This is my slate debut as a slate exile, if that's what you call somebody who left by choice.

Sadly, but by choice.

It's a trauma I'm still adjusting to for what it's worth.

My PTSD is ameliorating, but it's still pretty severe.

I can't believe you're not at Slate anymore, but I hope you're enjoying the new job,

and I'm glad you're still going to spoil movies with me.

Oh, no, I'm excited to spoil this one. I saw it at a premiere in D.C. I used my connections to see a premiere hosted by John Stewart that was, it really felt like the laying on of hands by the D.C. establishment.

So I'm interested to spoil this movie with you because just by dint of who's produced it, it has this almost must-see, must-talk-about error that maybe the movie itself can't quite carry.

By laying on of hands, do you mean that there was a feeling that it had to be praised and it had to be kind of held up as something worthwhile?

Definitely. That was the feeling I got from it. And I don't think, I haven't seen the backlash yet, but I'd like to hear how you describe the goings on and we could go into what worked and what didn't. I can talk a little bit about how. I mean, this is a movie that's hard to talk about without the metatextual facts of who produced it and the message and the place that it's appearing in.

I agree. I think that's why we

should start to some degree with the metatextual facts and why I'm interested in what the atmosphere

was like at the DC screening. Because as I say in my review of the movie, I don't think it's

really possible to write about this movie without a conflict of interest if you have any affection

for John Stewart's show or kind of longstanding relationship with it the way I do. And I think

lots of people who go see this movie will be seeing it because of him. So it's not really a case

where you can objectively separate the two things and say, let's just talk about Rosewater

as a movie, though I do want to get to that. I think I like the movie a lot better than you did,

and that may just be because I was so relieved that it wasn't a complete vanity project, you know, that it didn't, it didn't feel like this utterly misbegotten puff piece that was only existing because John Stewart had directed it, which is sometimes the way, for example, an actor-directed movie can feel.

Completely. I mean, it probably helps that he has not had a great successful acting career. I mean, I think when he brings up his own acting on The Daily Show, it's to make fun of himself for appearing in Death with Death Dismucci and people were sort of singing its praises in this in this cult way. Yeah, so were you surprised this wasn't

more of a vanity project or did it in fact feel like a vanity project to you? It felt like

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