Directed by Jon Stewart. Starring Gael García Bernal. Rated PG.

In 2009, just after the rigged elections in Iran triggered mass protests and a murderous government response, Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari—who had studied in Canada and by then lived in the U.K. with his newly pregnant wife—was arrested in Tehran and taken to the notorious Evin prison. He was held there for 118 days, mostly in solitary confinement, and pressured to admit that he was spying for the West. The regime’s principal evidence against him? A remote-satellite appearance on The Daily Show, in which Bahari played straight man to Jason Jones, as a clueless spy.

The Daily Show connection, no matter how spurious, obviously hit home with Jon Stewart, because the popular host took on the adaptation of his erstwhile guest’s memoir, Then They Came for Me, for his first stab at writing and directing a feature film. The results are affecting, well performed, and slightly stolid in the storytelling department—right down to the old-fashioned decision to have the international cast speak English in every scene. (The movie was mostly shot in Jordan.)

Mexican star Gael García Bernal plays the journalist, whose own father and older sister were victims of the shah and of the revolutionary regime, respectively. The drama largely consists of Bahari battling either with his own wits or with those—considerably less developed—of his bearded interrogator (Denmark’s Kim Bodnia), whom he knows only as Rosewater, after the scent he wears.

The encounters between Bernal and Bodnia are especially strong when the latter’s character betrays his essentially fearful and unsophisticated nature. (He wants to know why Bahari “liked” Anton Chekhov on his Facebook page.) But the tale lacks a strong narrative drive, the material is somewhat overfamiliar, and Stewart pulls the rookie move of padding things out with imaginary visits from deceased family members. He also can’t resist applying a taste of his trademark humour, including some well-timed New Jersey jokes and—best of all—that you have to dial “9” to make a call from Evin prison. Hey, whatever gets you out, man.