A Mighty Heart

2007 Drama

Angelina Jolie stars as Mariane Pearl, wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, in director Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of Mariane's memoir recounting the abduction and murder of her husband (played in the film by Dan Futterman) by Pakistani militants. It was on January 23, 2002, that Mariane Pearl's life took a grim and unanticipated turn that no one could have seen coming. The South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, was in Pakistan with his pregnant wife, Mariane, when he set out to conduct one last interview for an upcoming article; the pair were due to fly back home to the U.S. shortly thereafter. By all accounts, it was the same type of interview he had conducted a hundred times before, and though the only concern that Daniel had voiced beforehand was that he might be a bit late for dinner, it would soon become obvious that something had gone horribly awry. Later, in an attempt to rise above the seething vengeance and cycle of violence that the post-9/11 world has fallen into and familiarize her newborn son with the father he will never know, Mariane penned A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. The remarkable true story behind the murder that shook the entire world, Mariane's deeply personal novel is adapted for the screen by the BAFTA award-winning director of The Road to Guantanamo. more..

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Archie Panjabi, Will Patton, Irrfan Khan

Reviews

  • Moving and frighteningly real.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    29 November 2012

  • What is best about A Mighty Heart is that it doesn't reduce the Daniel Pearl story to a plot, but elevates it to a tragedy. A tragedy that illuminates and grieves for the hatred that runs loose in our world, hatred as a mad dog that attacks everyone. Attacks them for what seems, to the dog, the best of reasons.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    29 November 2012

  • The film belongs to Jolie. She won an Oscar for 1999's "Girl, Interrupted," but this is by far her best performance.

    Peter Travers - Rolling Stone

    29 November 2012

  • Emotionally and viscerally compelling and retains a suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat quality.

    Claudia Puig - USA Today

    29 November 2012

  • Effectively fashioned, as jolting as it is polished, as well as a surprising, insistently political work of commercial art.

    Manohla Dargis - The New York Times

    29 November 2012

Awards

  • Best Actress

    Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (2008)

     
  • Best Actress

    Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (2007)

     
  • Best Actress

    Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards (2007)

     
  • Best Actress

    Empire Awards, UK (2008)

     
  • Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama

    Golden Globes (2008)