A Mighty Heart

Do you remember that song "Video killed the Radio star"?
hm.. maybe you're not that old.
Aaaanyways.
I think Tabloid Killed the Movie Star.

So I watched A Mighty Heart yesterday.
It is actually a very powerful story about the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. But I had trouble suspending my belief for a few moments and feeling sympathy for his wife because I kept thinking about her frolicking around in a trishaw with Brad Pitt.
I managed to do that only at 2 points in the movie -
When she sms-ed "I love you" to him, in the middle of the night, even though she doesnt know if he'll get it.
When she screamed in grief after receiving the news (I had to actually mute my TV because it was too excrutiatingly painful to hear)
I cried both times.

I dont know, if it were not Angelina Jolie, I think I could've absorbed the movie better, but if it were not Angelina Jolie, would this movie get as much attention/promotion as it did?

I think this is why I like actors like Christian Bale and (uhm.. I'm trying to think of an actress that I like that is not over-exposed in the tabloids...) .. Selma Blair. You don't know what's going on with them in real life, so when they play a character on screen, they become believable as that character on screen. When they kiss their on-screen partner, you dont think about their off-screen partner being jealous.
Think about those years when tabloids barely existed. We believed Rock Hudson really loved Doris Day. We believed Cary Grant really loved Audrey Hepburn. We believed James Dean was really a rebel without a cause. We believed John Travolta was a struggling dancer or a teenager with an identity crisis. We believed C. Thomas Howell had big brothers as good looking as Patrick Swayze and Rob Lowe.
Now with the onslaught of too much information (on paper, on TV, on-line) about actors off-screen, it is becoming quite difficult to believe them when they are on-screen.

Anyways.
I liked A Mighty Heart. It is a good movie. I would buy and read the book if I have the chance, but I dont know if my heart is mighty enough to endure what she's gone through, even through empathy.