Riveting for every second, A Mighty Heart is the most commercial film that director Michael Winterbottom has made in the ’00s, but it’s just as uncompromising as his other recent foray into Middle East-United States politics, The Road to Guantanamo. Angelina Jolie’s transformative performance as Mariane Pearl, the reporter from whose book the film is adapted, is only the beginning of the movie’s many accolades. Focusing primarily on her efforts to find husband and Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman, writer of Capote) after he’s kidnapped by a terrorist cell, A Mighty Heart is both a harrowing thriller about an imminent threat and a celebration of our resolve in the face of an unspeakable tragedy (everything World Trade Center tried to be). Like United 93, it uses hand-held, documentary-style realism to dramatize one of the most topical and important stories in our global climate. The film is neither exploitative nor partisan and brilliantly condenses a complex story into a terse two hours. It’s a breathtaking experience, not a casual diversion – a plunge into the mighty heart of darkness and the coping light that lies beyond.