Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty is one of the most acclaimed films of the 2010s, and its ending offers a lot to unpack. Zero Dark Thirty’s cast is made up of numerous talented and recognizable actors, including Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Chris Pratt, and Joel Edgerton. They all play characters in various roles in the CIA and military through the ten-year period between the Sept. 11 attack and the death of Osama bin Laden, examining the ingenuity used to track down his hidden location and kill him.
Jessica Chastain plays Maya, a woman who has the integral idea of finding bin Laden by tracking down his courier, Abu Ahmed. The CIA follows her lead, eventually discovering a compound where they believe bin Laden to be hiding. Without absolute proof, it takes some convincing to obtain approval to send in a strike force, but the movie’s closing sequence sees SEAL Team Six sent in to do the deed. Zero Dark Thirty is based on a true story, and like in real life, Osama bin Laden is shot and killed, ending the decade-long manhunt.
Why Maya Cries In Zero Dark Thirty’s Ending
Maya Doesn’t Know Where To Go With Her Life After The Mission Ends
Despite her success, Maya is the only character not to be particularly thrilled in Zero Dark Thirty’s ending. The closing sequence shows her breaking down into tears after boarding a plane, and there are multiple elements here worth going over. Maya has just killed one of the most dangerous and sought-after men in the world using her intelligence and ingenuity, placing her at a high standing among her colleagues at the CIA.
She boards the plane alone, as she doesn’t have any friends or relationships beyond the CIA operation she’s expended so much time and energy on.
However, unlike Dan, who left the mission years prior to exploring a political career, and SEAL Team Six, who was only involved at the last minute, Maya has devoted a decade of her life to this mission. The film not only touches on the mission itself but also on how the mission causes her personal life to degrade, leaving her as a shell of her former self. She boards the plane alone, as she doesn’t have any friends or relationships beyond the CIA operation she’s expended so much time and energy on.
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Notably, the pilot asks her where she’d like to go, and that question triggers her emotional response. She’s alone and being asked where she’d like to go for the next portion of her life, and she hasn’t had a moment to think about it in over a decade. Maya has been so focused on hunting bin Laden that she hasn’t had time to think about what she wants, and upon realizing this, she has no response but to break into tears.
How Maya Determined Osama bin Laden’s Location
Maya Tracked Down bin Laden’s Courier
A crucial aspect of Zero Dark Thirty is that Maya arrives in Pakistan with fresh ideas in mind, often using the term “pre-9/11” to describe the methodology of her colleagues’ thoughts. The game has changed significantly, and the strategies utilized by their targets have changed to accommodate for rapidly evolving technology and increased security efforts. Maya’s superior, Joseph Bradley, wants to focus their efforts on gathering intel to prevent terrorist attacks, hoping to improve his standing through minor successes, while Maya wants to attack the enemy at its core.
There are multiple stages to gathering intelligence. First, they locate the courier Abu Ahmed by slowly gathering intel until they capture an image of him and his vehicle. They follow his car to the home that they believe bin Laden to be staying in and study the living space for months. An analyst named Steve Bradley notices that three women are living in the home, realizing that this must mean there are three men, one of whom they haven’t identified. Given the effort to hide the third man, they confirm that it must be a high-profile target, likely bin Laden.
Dan’s Story In Zero Dark Thirty Explained
Dan’s Humanity Suffers As He Grows Numb To Torture & Violence
Jason Clarke’s Dan is a curious character in Zero Dark Thirty, and though he’s mainly in the film for the first half, his story has important parallels to Maya’s. When Maya arrives, Dan has been in Pakistan for a while, and his morality has suffered under the pressure to obtain information. He’s willing to torture and use inhumane methods to obtain what he wants, and though he takes no joy in what he does, he’s reached a point where he can justify his actions.
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There’s a short and seemingly inconsequential scene where Dan plays with a caged monkey, demonstrating some semblance of humanity in him. The monkey is eventually taken away, and that’s when he realizes that he’s lost himself in this region. He needs to break away before he’s too far gone, though he might already be. Both Maya and Dan’s characters are representative of the decaying humanity coming from this mission.
How Accurate Zero Dark Thirty Is To The True Story
Kathryn Bigelow’s Movie Takes Creative Liberties
While Zero Dark Thirty is rooted in real events, many of the characters are fictional or significantly exaggerated. For example, the movie provides much of the credit to Maya’s ingenuity, but in real life, the success was attributed to a much larger team of individuals. Chris Pratt’s Zero Dark Thirty character is entirely fictional, as are many other of the operatives and soldiers, used primarily as amalgams of real-life figures that might have been involved in the mission.
US representatives claimed that the film exaggerated the use of torture (via The Christian Science Monitor), saying “[Zero Dark Thirty] exaggerates the pervasiveness and effectiveness of torture.” The film was also accused of misrepresenting Jennifer Matthews (called Jessica Zero Dark Thirty), one of the real-life figures among the cast, with those close to her outraged with the “heated depiction of Jennifer as some fluffy-headed schoolgirl“ (via Reuters). The changes made to the movie were controversial but ultimately effective in delivering a critically acclaimed piece.
The Real Meaning Of Zero Dark Thirty’s Ending
Zero Dark Thirty Is About Human Purpose
As much as Zero Dark Thirty is based on true, important political events, it’s also a story about the internal consequences of purpose. Maya gives a decade of her life to the manhunt of Osama bin Laden, and when she finally reaches her goal, she doesn’t know how to celebrate. Her life has become more about the pursuit of the mission than the completion of it, no matter how much she desires to complete it. At one point, she believes Abu Ahmed has died, and rather than celebrating, she’s frustrated that she’s lost her lead.
Maya is a character under extreme circumstances, as she’s involved in one of the most important missions in the world. Still, Zero Dark Thirty speaks to her mission in a broader sense, examining how any human being could be lost in their desire for purpose. The film is crucially existential in its examination of these events, showing the human cost of obsession, desperation, and dedication.
Sources: The Christian Science Monitor, Reuters
7/10
Zero Dark Thirty
Zero Dark Thirty chronicles the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the September 2001 attacks, culminating in his death by Navy SEAL Team 6 in May 2011.
- Director
- Kathryn Bigelow
- Release Date
- December 19, 2012
- Cast
- Jessica Chastain , Jason Clarke , Kyle Chandler , Jennifer Ehle , Mark Strong , Joel Edgerton , Chris Pratt , Edgar Ramirez , Mark Duplass , Scott Adkins , Harold Perrineau , Jeremy Strong , Reda Kateb , Ricky Sekhon , J.J. Kandel , James Gandolfini , Stephen Dillane , John Schwab , Martin Delaney
- Runtime
- 157 Minutes
