DVD of the Week: A Mighty Heart

Angelina Jolie's bid for a second Oscar win may have been weakened by poor box office receipts, but her performance in this docudrama about the final hours of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's life remains one of the more remarkable pieces of acting anywhere all year. Director Michael Winterbottom made the imperative decision here to keep Jolie submersed in the low key style of film. With her glamour and fame reduced to a pallid shadow in the deep deep background of the audience's mind, Jolie is able to give the kind of perception shattering performance her tabloid weighted screen persona usually prevents. As Pearl's wife Marianne she's showcased in a heartbreaking shade of minimalist despair and courage. What's best about this film is the cut and dry dramatics. It's a very meticulous account of the search that was undertaken in pursuit of Pearl and his captors and not nearly the kind of bombastically sentimental fluff film it might have been in lesser hands. Pearl's story is not watered down into a simple science of sorrow and sacrifice. It's colored with real world complexity and driven to a point of intense, in the moment connection to the narrative on a very human, apolitical level. A Mighty Heart pays deep respect to the Pearl family and their tragedy but never loses sight of the potency of truthful, precise storytelling. Like the most gripping pieces of journalism, it gives you a greatly detailed understanding of the situation that is both perceptively authentic and undeniably passionate.