danny-pearl

Why 'A Mighty Heart' Is A Cruel Failure

Choire · 06/15/07 12:14PM

Asra Nomani, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who's the "supporting character" in "A Mighty Heart," the Angelina Jolie film about journalists Danny and Marianne Pearl and Danny's murder in Pakistan, helped out on making the picture true to life. She made sure the cast even got the right notebooks that she and Danny used. But when she saw the glittery press photos out of the film's premiere at Cannes, she had a "duh" moment. The marketing, the PR, the celebrities: All of it was absolutely the antithesis of Danny, she realized. The studio publicists brought a screener of the film to her house in West Virginia: the on-screen Danny just looked so flat. So in an email to a producer of the film early this month, Nomani wrote: "I'm not going to be attending the premiere because, upon reflection, I just don't believe in the movie and the mythology of its marketing and PR campaign."