A Mighty Heart
When Angelina Jolie’s not juggling orphans in the pages of Grazia, she makes films. Her latest, A Mighty Heart, has been rapturously received, with critics greeting it as her first decent outing since 1999‘s Girl, Interrupted.
A Mighty Heart tells the story of the kidnapping and decapitation of Daniel Pearl, a US journalist, who was snatched while researching links between shoe bomber Richard Reid, Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence chiefs in Karachi. Six days later, his beheading was posted on the internet. Three months later, Mariane, his wife, gave birth to their first child.
Jolie’s turn as the crusading widow has been hailed as understated and intelligent, but the film has attracted its share of controversy. A former colleague of Pearl’s, Asra Nomani, said the reporter would have “rolled his eyes” at director Michael Winterbottom’s portrayal of his family as “ordinary heroes”, and black campaigners have criticised the casting of white Jolie as the mixed-race female lead.
With the film in cinemas from today, it’s a chance for you to make up your mind. Other releases this week include Kenneth Branagh’s As You Like It and Quentin Tarantino’s much-praised US box office failure Death Proof