A Mighty Heart is a tough movie to go into. Since we already know how this story ends, the filmmakers need to rely on something other than plot. The story has to be elevated somehow, the emotional quotient has to be amped up, and the performances have to carry all of the dramatic weight to make the movie have some sort of substance.
The story of Daniel Pearl is one loaded with emotion and sadness, and it would be easy for the director and writer to sit back and let the emotion of the situation carry us through. Fortunately, director Michael Winterbottom and star Angelina Jolie do not let this happen. The end result is not perfect, but it is a powerful story of love and loss in a fast changing world.
There have been a few movies over the past couple of years that told stories that we all know the ending to and proved to be emotionally draining experiences. What is tough about this type of films is that it is easy to get caught up in the real emotion related to the actual events rather than how successful the film is at telling the story and letting a finely crafted film draw out the emotion more organically.
Two such recent films are The Passion of the Christ and United 93, however neither seems like a good example of a film that relies on the real emotion, as they are both well made and powerful films, and would be in the same category as A Mighty Heart in how well they are crafted. A better example of a film in the other category would be World Trade Center, which, when viewed objectively, is rather generically directed. There is nothing special about that presentation, however the true story behind the events supplies the emotion, along with Nicolas Cage's performance. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that films that we know the ending of need to have strong performances and strong direction to give it meaning beyond the telling of the story.
The film is based on the memoir of the same name written by Mariane Pearl, and it recounts her experiences of being in Karachi, Pakistan with her husband Daniel. Daniel was working on a story and it was leading him to meet with Sheik Gelani, a meeting which turned out to be a smoke screen as he was kidnapped by a terrorist group. However, we are not told any of his story with the terrorists, what happened when he went to meet his contact, and we never see his fate, nor the videotape that was released. This is primarily the story of Mariane Pearl and the horror that she had to deal with, and the strength of character and heart that she possesses. This is a story that is firmly centered on Mariane Pearl.
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