A Mighty Heart is a detailed account of the search for kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Before production was officially announced, Winterbottom traveled with co-star Dan Futterman and a skeleton crew to Karachi for ten days of filming at actual locations from the events.

[11] The production shot multiple scenes in Austin, Texas in early 2007, including a key sequence with Marianne Pearl giving an interview in a Karachi hotel.

The site's consensus states: "Angelina Jolie conveys the full emotional range of a woman in a desperate situation in A Mighty Heart, an urgent yet tactful film about a difficult subject.

[18] The film was described by Newsweek as "a movie without melodrama or movie-star lighting…allowing Jolie to deliver the most delicate, powerful and human-scale performance of her career.

"[19] Other favorable reviewers included Peter Travers of Rolling Stone,[20] Justin Chang of Variety[21] and Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter.

"[23] Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum felt that Jolie's celebrity was a problem, commenting that "Despite the best of intentions, an actress who makes her own headlines gets in the way of the big picture.

Describing her own response to the film, Nomani said, "For me, watching the movie was like having people enter my home, rearrange the furniture and reprogram my memory.

SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling said, "We are honored to celebrate Ms. Jolie in what is arguably one of the most extraordinary female roles of the year".