DRAMA; 1hr 48min
STARRING: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman
Stolen moments: Futterman and Jolie
The kidnapping and beheading of your partner by terrorists in a foreign country when you are six months pregnant is an unimaginably frightening prospect. Such is the tragedy that falls French-born journalist Mariane Pearl (Jolie), whose husband Daniel Pearl (Futterman), The Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, is abducted and murdered while on assignment in Karachi on January 23, 2002.
Director Michael Winterbottom’s effective re-creation of the top-priority investigation into Daniel’s disappearance is the more compelling for an awareness of its outcome. The film crew hit the streets of India, France and Pakistan with a keep-it-real intent that puts us at the nexus of chaos. Mariane proves to be an uncommonly resourceful woman (and Jolie’s fierce empathy for her is unwavering). But she is a long way from home with only hope and the imperative of her pregnancy to anchor her. The film of her story — adapted from her 2003 memoir — is a heartening analysis of courage, for even when a battle is irrevocably lost, generosity of spirit is its own, proud victory.
