By Jessica Herndon, Film Writer
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) --Kristen Stewart endures a fair share of abuse in her latest film.
In "Camp X-Ray," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, the actress stars as Amy Cole, a guard stationed at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. prison in Cuba detaining terrorist suspects.
In the film Stewart takes an elbow to the face, is spit on and is splattered with feces.
But she learns such treatment is nothing compared to the harsh reality of the detainees, namely innocent prisoner Ali Amir, played by Peyman Moaadi, who she befriends.
"Are we doing the female soldier movie of our generation?" posed Stewart in a recent phone interview. "It gets that idea across, but it doesn't feel pushy. It's mad topical."
In a Q&A following the film's debut, Lane Garrison, who also plays a soldier in the film, said working on the movie shifted his thinking of Gitmo.
"I had a belief that everyone down there was responsible for 911," said Garrison. "After doing this film I started asking questions about Guantanamo Bay and come to find out that there are still men down there that no country wants and I started thinking 'What if there is a guy down there that is innocent that's not a terrorist. Does he deserve that day in court. It changed me to start asking questions and not just go along with the flow."
First-time filmmaker Peter Sattler said he got the inspiration for "Camp X-Ray" after watching documentary footage of a guard and a detainee talking about books on a library cart. In his film, Stewart's Amy Cole and Moaadi's Ali similarly bond over the prison's book selection.
To prepare for the role of Ali, Moaadi says he "stayed in a prison cell for a couple of hours each day" while on location at an abandoned juvenile prison in Whittier, Calif. "I got let out for this," he joked.
Sattler originally intended Stewart's role for a male, but he shifted to a female lead because he felt it created more conflict between Amy and Ali. "And Muslims' extremist relationship toward women also complicated (the story)," he said. "So I clicked into that."
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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