Film Review: A Mighty Heart

by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

A Mighty Heart, (Cert. 15, 100 mins)
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Irfan Khan, Archie Panjabi and Will Patton
Directed by Michael Winterbottom

SOME films have to be made, not for commercial purposes but to bring greater understanding of what is happening in the world. A Mighty Heart is one of those films.

There are few people, I suspect, who will want to see a film based on the true story of a woman whose journalist husband was kidnapped in Pakistan and later beheaded, an event filmed for the internet.

The British director, Michael Winterbottom, does not make it any easier for us by filming in a documentary style complete with wobbly cameras and a virtually unknown cast.

There were times when I found the events totally confusing, which is the feeling many must have about real events involving post 9/11 terrorism.

If there is one reason to see it – apart from allowing the viewer to live through real and horrific events – it is to see the performance of Angelina Jolie.

She plays Mariane Pearl, the journalist whose husband, Daniel, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped from the streets of Karachi, in Pakistan, in 2002.

Little is known about the kidnap, and the film scripted by John Orloff gives no further clues.

We never see the kidnap, never see Daniel Pearl in captivity and – thankfully – are spared the execution.

Instead, it focuses on Mrs Pearl, who pulled out all the stops trying to trace her missing husband. She was later to write a book, on which the film is based.

Heavily pregnant at the time, it was a nightmare scenario for her. The couple were due to leave the country the next day, and Daniel wanted to do just one last interview.

They waved goodbye as Daniel left in a taxi and it is that last image which Mariane recalls throughout the film.

With the help of a fellow female journalist, she tries all the contacts when the realisation comes that Daniel has disappeared and is not just late back.

Eventually, the Pakistan security forces are involved, an American agent and one of the Wall Street Journal bosses.

Based in a friend’s flat, there is a flow of activity, comings and goings and even a chef supplied for her.

We move from the investigation – which offers a witness being tortured in a routine way, apparently with American approval – to the flat and memories of happier days.

There is a jumble of images, most of them very short, and thus comes the confusion despite the occasional subtitle explaining which character is which.

Winterbottom captures the desperate scene well, particularly the clogged and dusty streets of Karachi.

But it is Ms Jolie who steals the show with an emotional performance that varies from grim determination to a desperate cry when the truth of the husband’s death is revealed.

With a curly hairstyle as sported by the real Mariane Pearl, she still looks glamorous but can act. This is hardly the same woman who starred in two Tomb Raider films.

Of course, not being there, I would not know how close to reality director Winterbottom gets here.

It looks real, it feels real, but as with all documentary-style films based on real events, it is best to sound a note of caution.

This is a film, not real life.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk