A Mighty Heart (2007): C

Contrary to what you might have read, A Mighty Heart isn’t about Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2002 was murdered by Islamic kidnappers in Pakistan. In fact, Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of the memoir of Pearl’s reporter wife Mariane doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, which means that it ultimately winds up being not very much at all. Aside from a brief intro and flashbacks to the couple’s happier times – both of which are sapped of impact by the script’s disinterest in depicting Daniel (Dan Futterman) as an actual person rather than a haunting specter – the film is confined to the tense few weeks during which the pregnant Mariane (Angelina Jolie) worked with WSJ colleagues, the CIA, and Pakistani intelligence officers to locate and rescue her husband. The result is that the narrative splits time between lionizing Mariane as a strong, resolute, devoted wife, and focusing on the ins-and-outs of the investigation into the abduction, a tack that wholly sidesteps addressing the ramifications of, or lessons learned from, Daniel’s capture and murder. A Mighty Heart’s detail-driven recreation of the official search – done in the same proficient docudrama style that characterized Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo – obviously yields little suspense (since the outcome is public knowledge), but, more problematically, it fails to convey anything incisive about the story’s greater geopolitical issues (Islamofascism, anti-Semitism, other facets of the war on terror). And while Mariane proves an admirable figure, her center-stage position in what is, at heart, her husband’s story feels wrongheaded, an impression magnified by the fact that righteous humanitarian icon Jolie isn’t able (or willing) to convincingly subsume herself into the role. When Mariane explodes in a grieving climactic wail, who we see – to the film’s ultimate detriment – isn’t the distraught widow of a brave journalist, but, rather, a global celebrity using a tragedy as the vehicle for her own personal star showcase.

Comments

[richard peterson]

2008 OSCAR to ANGELINA JOLIE

[Nick]

Boy, let's hope not.

[Andres Zambrano]

Yeah, let's hope not -- I mean, half of the time she is either a. not on the screen or b. yelling "fuck", or "Danny!".

[Shaw Hubbard]

You know, I only read this after having seen it, and while your description was what I expected, it wasn't what I got. Angie's performance aside (which was exactly what I expected - fine, but you never forgot she (AJ) BELIEVED in what she was DOING), I liked that even though I knew exactly how the search would turn out, I still could feel hope that it would somehow end differently and they would find him. And for a jaded old cynic, that's a nice feeling. I agree wholeheartedly with your argument that Winterbottom seemed to avoid "addressing the ramifications of, or lessons learned from, Daniel’s capture and murder." Which was a shame, because I can't imagine any other reason to make this film.

[Nick]

Well, I'm glad to hear it gave your cynical heart some hope, Shaw. Me, I just couldn't understand - and thus become emotionally involved in - the police procedural stuff, since it was apparent early on that this material wasn't going to tell me anything of significant worth about Pearl, journalists in war zones, or any geopolitical issues.