A Mighty Heart (2007) Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Nick:
The war in Iraq seems an age away now. 10 years is a long time. So much pain and loss on all sides.  It's war based on a brazen lie from supposed civilized nations. Coupled with the arrogance that we are dealing with supposedly inferior people living in different cultures we dare not understand, our trail of destruction raises all kinds of moral questions. But we can afford to ignore our own moral dilemmas as our lives are enveloped in materialistic temptations and those troubles in far off continents just seem like something happening over there. Winterbottom has repeatedly tried to draw us back into messes our governments have often shirked, giving us real events dramatized in his dry/semi-documentary style if not an actual documentary. The Shock Doctrine (2009) The Road To Guantanamo(2006) Welcome To Sarajevo(1997) and A Mighty Heart all deal with war in modern times and its various repercussions. Winterbottom has form and doesn't shirk from showing the uncomfortable.

A Mighty Heart is another movie where Winterbottom manages to work with top-draw Hollywood talent on a low budget. So, amongst Winterbottom's often difficult and challenging oeuvre you'll find the likes of Jessica Alba, Colin Firth, Steve Coogan, Kate Hudson, Milla Jovovich, Kate Winslet and Woody Harrelson slumming it in often political, generally top quality, yet weird films. This time, it's Angelina Jolie, taking a trip out of her comfort zone and messing with the rough trade to show she's got the chops to be taken seriously. And she's good in A Mighty Heart. Winterbottom rein-acts the real life kidnapping and ultimate murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan with his usual no thrills. The focus is on how Pearl's pregnant wife Mariane (Jolie) deals with the often confusing search for her husband.

Winterbottom bravely shows possible logical reasons as to Pearl's murder by Islamic fundamentalists he was supposed to interview before he and his wife were due to leave Pakistan. Was it because of Guantanamo? Because Pearl was Jewish? Repercussions for American involvement in Iraq? Supposed Wall Street Journal coercion with the CIA? Or because the Pearls housed an Indian helper who was possibly looking to discredit Pakistan? Winterbottom considers all options to the kidnapping/murder that nowadays is simply put down to an al-Qaeda killing.  A Mighty Heart despite this, still works as drama. That Mariane Pearl, a journalist herself, emerges from A Mighty Heart as a human being with great compassion and willingness to understand difference in the most trying and horrific circumstances, is something we could all learn from. Up to his usual high standards, Winterbottom's picture is a powerful reminder and lesson in tolerance.

Astrid:
In 2007 there was still a sense of urgency about understanding what was really going on with the USA in Iraq, Afghanistan and the neighboring countries. I had that need too and wanted to see A Mighty Heart immediately when it came out. I did not see it, for some reason. Now, at the end of 2011 there is a deflated helplessness and resignation to all things evil – I mean that the general feeling, the media and individual people seem to be much less attuned to asking what is still going on. I'm talking about a perspective that's strictly Scandinavian, far-removed from the streets of Pakistan for example. (I imagine it impossible to not ask those questions there every day.)

In this climate watching A Mighty Heart seemed out of place. It did not feel right to view it as pure cinema, because of its depiction of real events and people. It did not seem right to view it as a superstar vehicle for Angelina Jolie either. As a movie or a series of acting performances there was nothing that impressive about the film. Yet, time had passed and the film had lost some of its political urgency, which I can imagine was shocking still in 2007.

Then again, as the end credits roll and remind you that Mariane Pearl is now living with her son in Paris, the realness of it all hits me. Despite the movie's end or the Western world's gradual disinterest in their own hateful mess, the husband and father Pearl is never coming home to his family.
This simple point should end all conflict and prove futile the logic of hatred and warfare. It seems that the Pearl family knew this and know it still, after their personal loss. It is still important to make films about what is really happening around the world – sometimes cinematic values become secondary to the need to tell the truth. Injustice will not end through ignorance.

Terms of Endearment (1983) Directed by James L. Brooks

Nick:
I get it sometimes when extremely tired, also when mentally and emotionally hurt. If I bang my little toe on the sideboard, I get it too. What is it I get? I get a handful of hankies/tissue papers and ultimately a flood of tears. Yes, I get tearful. I cry watching movies (I'm sure I've mentioned this here before?) King Kong does it for me every time (strangely the 1970's remake!?) And some other pictures like say, Casablanca or the Clint Eastwood/Meryl Streep definition of the modern weepie, The Bridges Of Madison County. Terms Of Endearment is a terrible film. There is no way for me to avoid making that statement. It's smug and self-satisfied and has the worst chirpy-fucking-chirp soundtrack. Add this to shallow characterization in a film that thinks it's dealing with real issues. Yet, this film makes me blub like a baby every time. Why?

Hateful mum (Shirley MaClaine, sister of Warren) resents getting old, treats grown-up daughter (Debra Winger) terribly. Mother does not agree with her daughter's pending wedding to Stephen Malkmus clone Flap (Jeff Daniels). After the marriage a few years whiz by. Daughter has children all the time whilst husband moves family around America, accepting teaching jobs and having affairs with students. Daughter has affair with ugly bank manager and is diagnosed with cancer. Lots of guilt ensues. Daughter dies. Crying starts. This is basically the plot of Terms Of Endearment. I forgot to mention that MacLaine is excellent and that Jack Nicholson as a boozy womanizing astronaut steals the film. In fact the hateful mother and the crazy astronaut scenes elevate Terms Of Endearment momentarily to greatness. Unfortunately, the movie focuses too much on the duller-than-life daughter's story.

Despite my boredom with this twee Americana and the essentially slavish mentality of the do-gooding Winger character, once she's on her death bed, being so brave and the big C is coming to get her and she says goodbye to her kids and her husbands a shit, the hateful mum keeps the children once she's gone, all this emotion just does me in, it's too much for me ...boo hoo hoo.......  So, I say it again. Terms Of Endearment is a terrible film. One that brings the tears out in me and I don't know why (or maybe I'm being coy?).

Astrid:
Terms of Endearment is a film I cannot discuss without acknowledging that I took it very personally indeed. I (along with a surprisingly big number of my close friends) am currently expecting a baby. Needless to say, at this point this fact influences my perspective on almost anything I experience. Yet,  because Terms of Endearment is largely about a mother-daughter relationship once the daughter has started her own family, I watched it especially closely with mother-to-be spectacles on.

The movie portrays a mother (MacLaine) who has difficulty letting go of her daughter and accepting and supporting her in her independent choices. In fact, the mother has obviously always been using the daughter for her emotional needs rather than offering her own shoulder of support for her growing child. That becomes clear from the beginning of the film. The mother does not approve of the daughter's (Winger) hair, girlfriend, husband, or any choices for that matter. The film offers no explanation as to why these people have turned out the way they are. The mother is rich and the daughter ends up poor and uneducated with three children and a philandering looser husband. The mother finally breaks her years of loneliness by starting an affair with her neighbor, an alcoholic astronaut (Nicholson). All the while the mother keeps herself suffocatingly close to the daughter by phoning her up everyday, all day long. I'm not sure if the film is aware of its portrayal of co-dependency, but that's what it certainly depicts.

Terms of Endearment is infuriatingly flawed. It creates very flawed characters and leaves the viewer wondering if this is entirely intentional or not. Maybe it's a good thing that I never know what the film wants me to feel about anything – there is a callousness of the characters which remains in complete juxtaposition with the sentimental and therefore intrusive music. Finally, the ending of the film is entirely unsatisfactory. Despite all these things, in my current state of metamorphosis and becoming, I enjoyed the movie because it allowed me to reflect on my own dreams of mothering and my own experiences as somebody's child. Terms of Endearment was made in 1983. Unfortunately, I'm afraid there is nothing out there being made now that could speak even this honestly of such flawed parenting. Nowadays Hollywood seems to concentrate on sneakily making films about how to be a better consumer-mother-workaholic-genius-breeder. No pressure – just entertainment.