So I went to the sneak of ""A Mighty Heart" last night.
It is the story of the search for Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl after he was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002 and is based on Mariane Pearl's (his widow) book, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life & Death of My Husband Danny Pearl.
Angelina Jolie, whom I really like - even in her silly movies, is radiant as the pregnant Haitian-French radio reporter Mariane Pearl. Dan Futterman as Danny Pearl is as soft spoken yet dogged as Pearl was by all accounts. I suspect this movie will be a real breakout for him after a career which has largely been in television projects.
The movie is good, and based on the facts as I remember them. The cast is strong. But I thought there was something missing. Maybe I was too caught up in the story when it was happening, despite the distraction of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games here in Salt Lake City, and remember the news too well. But I thought the movie lacked passion. I expected the movie to be more frenzied, more desperate. It may be that Mariane Pearl was that stoic, that seemingly calm, but you'd think someone, one of their friends or a member of Danny's family, would have broken the calm reserve while they were still searching for him and hoping that he was alive.
There are some wonderfully human moments, but they seemed few and far between.
Maybe it's me, maybe I used up all my emotion for this story five years ago. I just wanted to like both of the Pearls more in this movie, since it begins on the day of the kidnapping we only get to know him in flashbacks and really only see the good side of her the same way.
It's a difficult story to tell and it is told well in this movie, but that's all. I can get more feeling for both of them in newspaper accounts.
Guess I'll have to grab the book on my next trip to the library to see if it has more passion than John Orloff's screenplay.
