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Review: A Mighty Heart
"True story" movies are a genre I generally avoid. Titanic bored me: there's no suspense in the story for me when I already know the ship is going to break in two and sink. Same with Apollo 13. United 93 I didn't even bother to watch; all those 911 movies seemed exploitative propoganda as well as predictable.
So I approached A Mighty Heart without much hope. It does, to an extent, suffer from the same problem. 'Most everyone knows the story of the kidnap and murder of Journalist Daniel Pearl. The film is, however, based on his wife's memoir of the events, which is less well known. And the movie succeeds by not trying for huge suspense. Instead, we are shown the human side of the events: the efforts of real people behind the headlines and politics, with the movie audience watching while knowing that it cannot end well. It's an effective choice.
So what did I think of it? Well, please bear in mind that I really wasn't well this weekend and I did miss several minutes of the film 'cause I had to leave the theatre a couple of times. But I don't think that really changes my feelings about it.
What I loved: Anjelina Jolie's performance is incredible. She's an actress who works best with challenging material: give her crap like the Tomb Raider movies and she doesn't really try. Give her a tough script like Girl, Interrupted or this one and boy does she get it right. Throughout the movie, Marianne remains calm, logical and professional about her husband's disappearance. A lesser actress would give the impression that she doesn't really care, but what AJ shows us is little glimpses of how close she is to falling apart under the cool exterior. She really makes you feel Marianne's panic, with little looks, moments when the facade cracks before she pulls herself together again. You know that when this woman allows herself to let go, it's going to be horrible.
And because her performance is so great, it really carries the film. The audience knows how it's going to end, but that inevitability just adds to the tension as the details of what's happening to Danny come in with agonising slowness.
Another thing is the sense of being in a foreign country. I don't know where this was filmed but it certainly isn't some Hollywood back lot and the filmmakers have gone to a lot of trouble to recreate modern day Pakistan. I've never been there, of course, so I'm talking out of my ass if I say it's authentic, but it feels very authentic. Right from the opening scenes I had a sense of being in a place that's...alien. Familiar, in the way setting seen in newsclips always are, but essentially a world and a society entirely removed from my experience. It creates a sense of disorientation which really makes me admire the way the characters, especially Marianne, hold together in this crisis.
What I didn't like: The movie is made in what they now call "documentary style" - in other words, lots of grainy film, hand-held camera work with no attempt to keep it steady, camera angles that make it obvious you're looking through a camera and not really part of the scene. Interspersed with this are re-created television interviews and a flash or two of genuine newsreel footage. This might have been a logical choice if the movie were an attempt to recreate the kidnap, but it's not. The movie is about her and this technique, headache and nausea-inducing as it is, serves only to distance the audience from the characters. It's just too much.
What I hated: Why, oh why did they have to ruin the film with a freaking childbirth scene. Marianne Pearl was five months pregnant when her husband was kidnapped. Yes, I get it. But the movie makes no attempt to create any real significance in the child. Other than a brief mention of choosing names and an even briefer scene where she becomes ill, it's utterly irrelevant to the film. She just happens to be pregnant.
It didn't have to be that way. Given the story being told, it would have made sense to show her love for the child, especially after her husband's death. I totaly undestand how, in context, the child could symbolise her strength and hope for the future. But I get no sense of that in this film. It's about Marianne and Danny and their relationship. The kid is just, well, an excuse to show her screaming in pain at the end.
Instead of a story about how incredible this woman is - which is the truth of it - the film ends by proclaiming she went through this horrible ordeal, her husband was brutally murdered but hey, it's okay 'cause the baby-making-factory is still online. They've reduced this incredible woman to a womb and nothing more, ignoring her powerful message, utterly dismissing the work she's done since then.
What bullshit. It completely ruined the film for me.
So I approached A Mighty Heart without much hope. It does, to an extent, suffer from the same problem. 'Most everyone knows the story of the kidnap and murder of Journalist Daniel Pearl. The film is, however, based on his wife's memoir of the events, which is less well known. And the movie succeeds by not trying for huge suspense. Instead, we are shown the human side of the events: the efforts of real people behind the headlines and politics, with the movie audience watching while knowing that it cannot end well. It's an effective choice.
So what did I think of it? Well, please bear in mind that I really wasn't well this weekend and I did miss several minutes of the film 'cause I had to leave the theatre a couple of times. But I don't think that really changes my feelings about it.
What I loved: Anjelina Jolie's performance is incredible. She's an actress who works best with challenging material: give her crap like the Tomb Raider movies and she doesn't really try. Give her a tough script like Girl, Interrupted or this one and boy does she get it right. Throughout the movie, Marianne remains calm, logical and professional about her husband's disappearance. A lesser actress would give the impression that she doesn't really care, but what AJ shows us is little glimpses of how close she is to falling apart under the cool exterior. She really makes you feel Marianne's panic, with little looks, moments when the facade cracks before she pulls herself together again. You know that when this woman allows herself to let go, it's going to be horrible.
And because her performance is so great, it really carries the film. The audience knows how it's going to end, but that inevitability just adds to the tension as the details of what's happening to Danny come in with agonising slowness.
Another thing is the sense of being in a foreign country. I don't know where this was filmed but it certainly isn't some Hollywood back lot and the filmmakers have gone to a lot of trouble to recreate modern day Pakistan. I've never been there, of course, so I'm talking out of my ass if I say it's authentic, but it feels very authentic. Right from the opening scenes I had a sense of being in a place that's...alien. Familiar, in the way setting seen in newsclips always are, but essentially a world and a society entirely removed from my experience. It creates a sense of disorientation which really makes me admire the way the characters, especially Marianne, hold together in this crisis.
What I didn't like: The movie is made in what they now call "documentary style" - in other words, lots of grainy film, hand-held camera work with no attempt to keep it steady, camera angles that make it obvious you're looking through a camera and not really part of the scene. Interspersed with this are re-created television interviews and a flash or two of genuine newsreel footage. This might have been a logical choice if the movie were an attempt to recreate the kidnap, but it's not. The movie is about her and this technique, headache and nausea-inducing as it is, serves only to distance the audience from the characters. It's just too much.
What I hated: Why, oh why did they have to ruin the film with a freaking childbirth scene. Marianne Pearl was five months pregnant when her husband was kidnapped. Yes, I get it. But the movie makes no attempt to create any real significance in the child. Other than a brief mention of choosing names and an even briefer scene where she becomes ill, it's utterly irrelevant to the film. She just happens to be pregnant.
It didn't have to be that way. Given the story being told, it would have made sense to show her love for the child, especially after her husband's death. I totaly undestand how, in context, the child could symbolise her strength and hope for the future. But I get no sense of that in this film. It's about Marianne and Danny and their relationship. The kid is just, well, an excuse to show her screaming in pain at the end.
Instead of a story about how incredible this woman is - which is the truth of it - the film ends by proclaiming she went through this horrible ordeal, her husband was brutally murdered but hey, it's okay 'cause the baby-making-factory is still online. They've reduced this incredible woman to a womb and nothing more, ignoring her powerful message, utterly dismissing the work she's done since then.
What bullshit. It completely ruined the film for me.