A Mighty Heart
Review by Peter T. Chattaway | posted 6/22/2007
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Last year, there was much discussion and debate about United 93 and World Trade Center, two movies that depicted the 9/11 attacks in very different ways. The former film was shot in a very naturalistic, almost documentary-like style, all the parts were played by essentially anonymous actors (or, in some cases, by the real-life people who had lived through that event), and the film ended on a sobering, ambiguous note. The latter film, on the other hand, was a more classically "Hollywood" kind of movie: major movie stars, expensive special effects, and an uplifting message.
Those two aesthetic approaches are essentially fused, with mixed results, in A Mighty Heart. The film is based on the book by Mariane Pearl—whose husband Daniel, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was abducted and murdered in Pakistan less than five months after 9/11—and it is directed by Michael Winterbottom, who has blurred the line between drama and documentary in films like In This World and The Road to Guantanamo. Winterbottom's films are often shot in a gritty, realistic fashion, and A Mighty Heart, much of which was shot on location in Pakistan, is no exception.
Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman star as Mariane and Daniel Pearl
But this is still a Hollywood film, and how you respond to it will ultimately hinge on how you respond to the performance of its star, Angelina Jolie—and you never quite forget that it is a performance. Jolie has darkened her skin and put on a wig to simulate Mariane Pearl's multi-ethnic appearance (Pearl is part Dutch, part Chinese, and part Afro-Cuban), and she does a decent job of mimicking Mariane's Parisian accent. But no matter how deglamorized she tries to be, Jolie remains Jolie, and the sheer star power that she brings to the part keeps you at a bit of a distance.
Fortunately, her performance does have its merits. In the film's early scenes, we see how cozy Mariane and Daniel (Dan Futterman) were with each other, even to the point that Mariane, despite being several months pregnant, sat in on the interviews that Daniel did with his sources. When Daniel goes missing, Mariane goes outside to cry, and on her way back into the house, she sees the housekeeper's young son and smiles at him—a smile that is as genuine as it is brave.
Randall Bennett (Will Patton) and Mariane
Daniel's disappearance brings out some of the contradictions in Pakistani politics and culture. Every foreigner—including the Pearls and their Indian-American colleague, Asra Nomani (Bend It Like Beckham's Archie Panjabi)—is accused of being a spy at some point, and one Pakistani official declares, unhelpfully, that Daniel's abduction was itself the work of Indian agents. On the other hand, the investigation is led by a Pakistani officer, called simply Captain (The Namesake's Irfan Khan), who comes across as thoughtful and sensitive—at least to the Westerners he's helping. To his own people, however, he can be a bit more rough—ironically doing things no American would tolerate, and all in the name of protecting Pakistan's reputation!
Winterbottom's last film was about prison conditions in Guantanamo Bay, so it comes as no surprise that several scenes in this film bring those issues to the fore. The point is made a few times that the treatment of detainees in Gitmo is a key item on the kidnappers' list of grievances, and one of the American officials, named Randall Bennett (Will Patton), seems almost unnervingly excited at the prospect of getting a "front-row seat" when the Pakistani police interrogate their own suspects.
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