A Mighty Heart tells the true story of five-month pregnant Mariane Pearl's attempts to locate and save her husband, a journalist who was kidnapped by terrorists in Pakistan. It shares many qualities with United 93, which was about the September 11 attacks, with the most obvious one being that it takes a national tragedy and fictionalizes it in the hopes of making it more powerful and engaging to audiences. They both use very documentary-style camerawork and editing, although I think both elements were much more fluid in A Mighty Heart. In attempting to avoid melodrama by keeping it unbiased and factual, both movies merely present the information and leave the viewer to take what he will out of it. I found no overarching purpose, theme, or message. Even so, both movies were made tastefully (it never felt like they were taking advantage of the tragedy for commercial gain) and both movies succeed on the emotional front, which may be in no small part to the innate power of the true events.
To separate the movies now and talk about the qualities of A Mighty Heart on its own--the most outstanding part of the movie was Angelina Jolie. Her acting was realistic, moving, and emotionally draining. My favorite part of the movie was during her first public interview. "If there was one thing you could say to your husband now, what would it be?" Almost cutting the interviewer off, her instant and touchingly candid "I love you" had a powerful effect on me. The music, acting by other characters, and technical qualities were also quite good, but nothing stood out as much as Jolie. And she carries the entire movie, pretty much. I sometimes felt uninterested when it followed the investigation for too long without going back to Jolie's character and how she was responding to the situation.
And as a simple, emotional story, it works. But as more than that, I feel that it doesn't. Like Breach, an excellent character study on Russian spy Robert Hanssen, it leaves you unfulfilled. Why did they make a movie that doesn't explain the underlying reasons for the characters' actions and merely presents events? We see a strong woman put in very trying circumstances who stays dedicated to her husband and then it ends. Was there some character growth or just exposition? It irks me, and almost feels like laziness on the part of the filmmakers for not making a point. But it would almost be demeaning to think that one person's life or death can be summed up as simply a take-home message and nothing more. So I am at an impasse about how I feel about this movie. Still, a very good movie, although I doubt it would be thought of as such if it were not based on true events and were made the same way. Highly recommended if you are interested in the subject matter, or if you like emotional stories.IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0829459/