A Mighty Heart

Michael Winterbottom, USA / UK, 2007
3.5 out of 4 stars

I was a bit surprised by some of the less-than-charitable reviews that I saw of this film after watching it, but upon further reflection, I think that the disparity of opinions can be readily explained by its somewhat-divided nature.

On the one hand, we have scenes of Marianne Pearl (Angelina Jolie) working alongside people from various agencies to find her husband, Danny, who has been kidnapped (and if you read the news, you know how this ends, but the film doesn’t inform you at the beginning if you aren’t already aware of it). Jolie pulls off a fairly competent attempt at mimicry, made a bit politically dubious in that they seem to have darkened her face ever so slightly in order to make her look more like the French-Afro-Cuban Mrs. Pearl (I also felt that, in her biggest “acting” moment near the end, Jolie embarrassed herself a bit, although I am not sure whose fault that is or if my reaction is even fair). I found Archie Panjabi and Irfan Khan to be particularly likeable, the former as a colleague and roommate (who unfortunately, due in part to the somewhat-elliptical storyline, comes off as an assistant at first), the latter as the main Pakistani investigator.

As I later learned, all these scenes involving Jolie in the Pearl house were actually shot in India for security reasons, and many of the actors playing Pakistani characters, such as Khan, are from Bollywood (Panjabi is British). And while these scenes are fairly strong, some of the most interesting stuff happens in the scenes that were actually shot in Pakistan, where the actual investigation gets underway (leaving behind the ostensible main character for large periods of time, more and more as the film continues) Because there is a bit more of a story in the conventional sense, the film was able to keep my attention a little more thoroughly than Michael Winterbottom’s earlier films that used this as a setting, namely In This World and, to a lesser extent, The Road to Guantánamo.

I only watched the first minute of the DVD’s “making of” featurette, but I was interested by Winterbottom’s explanation that he found something in Pearl’s memoir (by the same name) that resonated with his own experiences in Pakistan, making those earlier films. What he didn’t say, I imagine, was that by making use of the cachet from both the star system and the cult of the “true story” (not that this isn’t an important true story), he could try to convey what he’s seen about this area to the mainstream audience who has missed his previous work. He does so with some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen from him, using very short scenes and abrupt, yet seamless transitions in order to get plenty of information and sensation across without indulging himself or boring the viewer. I don’t know if this film is actually better than his other “political” films or if I am still just mainstream enough that I need something conventional to latch on to, but I do think that it’s an effective combination, if a little uneven when you really think about it.

Source: Paramount DVD
29 May, 9:11 PM