Dan Futterman

A Mighty Heart is based on Mariane Pearl`s account of the terrifying and unforgettable story of her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter, Danny Pearl`s life and death.

In 1959, the four dead bodies of the Clutter family are discovered on their Kansas farm. While reading The New York Times, Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is riveted by the story and calls The New Yorker magazine editor William Shawn (Bob Balaban) to tell him that he plans to document the tragedy. Capote travels to Kansas, inviting childhood friend Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) to come along. He intends to interview those involved with the Clutter family, with Lee as his go-between and facilitator. Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's lead detective on the case, brushes him off, but Dewey's wife Marie (Amy Ryan) is a fan of Capote's writing and persuades her husband to invite Capote and Lee to their house for dinner. Capote's stories of movie sets and film stars captivate Marie. Over time, her husband warms to Capote and allows him to view the photographs of the victims. The Deweys, Lee, and Capote are having dinner in Jan 1960 when the murder suspects, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Richard "Dick" Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), are caught. Flattery, bribery, and a keen insight into the human condition facilitate Capote's visits to the prison where the accused are held. Capote learns that the defense lawyers persuaded Smith and Hickock to waive their rights for a prelim hearing, as that would "curry favor with the judge". Capote begins to form an attachment to Smith. He informs Shawn of his intent to expand the story into a full-length book. Following the trial and conviction (where both are sentenced to death), Capote gains continued access to the murderers by bribing Warden Marshall Krutch (Marshall Bell). Smith had stopped eating for a month and Capote uses his special visiting rights to feed infant food to Smith and nurse him back to health. Capote spends the following years regularly visiting Smith and learning about his life, excepting a year-long stint when he goes to Morocco and Spain to write the "first three parts" of the book, accompanied by his romantic partner Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood). The story of Smith's life, his remorseful manner, and his emotional sincerity impress Capote, who becomes emotionally attached to him despite the gruesome murders. Capote aids Smith and Hickock by obtaining expert legal counsel for them and initiating an appeal in the Kansas supreme court. Still, he is frustrated, as Smith declines to relate exactly what happened on the night of the murders. Dewey is angry with Capote and threatens to hunt him down if the appeals lead to the perpetrators being let off in any way. Smith is also not happy with Capote as Capote will always dodge the question whether he will show his book to Smith. Capote has written a few chapters, but always lies that he has not written anything. Though initially an effort to provide proper representation and extend Capote's opportunity to speak with the killers, the appeals process drags on for several years. Without the court case being resolved, Capote feels he is stuck with a story without an ending, and he is unable to complete his book. Eventually he gets Smith to describe the killings and his thoughts at the time in great detail (Smith admits that he and Hickock entered the house on a tip that the house had $10,000 in it. In the end Smith ended up shooting everyone as there was only 50$ in the house). He has what he wants from Smith, but in the process, he sees a callousness and selfishness in his own actions. He withdraws the legal aid he has provided Smith and Hickock and leaves them to fend for themselves in the Supreme Court, their last appeal. Now with everything in hand, Capote still must wait for the appeals process to conclude before he feels he can publish his work. In the course of time, Lee's best-selling novel To Kill a Mockingbird is turned into a movie, but Capote is unable to share in the joy of his friend's success, too caught up in drinking through his own misery. With the last appeal rejected, Smith pleads for Capote to return before he is executed on Apr 14th, 1965, but Capote cannot bring himself to do so. A telegram from Smith to Harper Lee ultimately compels Capote to return to Kansas. There he is an eyewitness as Smith and Hickock are executed. Capote talks to Lee about the horrifying experience and laments that he could not do anything to stop it. She replies, "Maybe not. The fact is you didn't want to." The final scenes show Capote looking through photos from the case and at the writings and drawings given to him by Smith. An epilogue points out that In Cold Blood turned Capote into the most famous writer in America, also noting that he never finished another book. He died in 1984 due to alcoholism.

After running away fails, a terrified woman empowers herself in order to battle her abusive husband. Local waitress Slim Miller discovers that the dream man she married isn't who she thought he was. Slim and her young daughter try to escape (aided by her previous boyfriend), but the now villainous husband pursues her relentlessly. Fearing also for the safety of her daughter, Slim decides that there's only one way out of the marriage: kill him. —Jess <jess.2000@ic24.net>

The film opens with a performance at the Birdcage, a nightclub situated in South Beach, Miami. The club is owned by Armand Goldman, a gay Jew in a relationship with the club's star Albert, who performs as a drag queen. Armand's son Val returns from college with an announcement: he is getting married to a schoolmate, Barbara Keeley, whose father Kevin Keeley is a conservative politician from Ohio who founded the Coalition for Moral Order, and who is seeking reelection. The problem is that Barbara hid the truth from her parents - she informed them that Val's father is a cultural attaché for Greece and that Val's mother is a housewife, and that their last name was Coleman. The Keeleys, meanwhile, are in the midst of their own crisis: Keeley's co-founder for the Coalition, Senator Jackson, died of a heart attack while in bed with an underage black prostitute. This event makes headlines, and gets the Keeleys swamped with hordes of reporters and threatens to ruin their political position. Kevins wife Louise proposes that they go to see Val's parents, who they believe are a traditional wholesome family, as a double measure to both avoid the reporters and to restore their impeccable public image. They set off, but are being tracked by a couple of reporters, who are themselves tracked by competing reporters... Val begs his father to go along with the charade, and after some deliberation he concedes. They both set to work remodeling their apartment into a more austere and simple home, and dress up the flamboyant gay manservant Agador as a butler/cook. Less simple is asking Albert for support; an effeminate, temperamental and sensitive partner, he is offended at Armand and Val asking him to be absent due to his obvious gayness, and when he tries to act like a heterosexual he fails miserably. With no other choices, Armand and Val decide to call upon Val's birthmother Katherine, a former showgirl who left Val with Armand and ran off to become a businesswoman. Asking Katherine is the last straw for Albert and he decides to go to a cemetery; Armand calms him down and reaffirms their devotion by giving him partnership of the Birdcage. The Keeleys arrive, and the night starts off fairly well, with only a few hiccups. Unfortunately, Katherine, who was supposed to join the party, gets stuck in traffic. Unexpectedly Albert dresses up as a woman and takes her place, to the horror of Armand and Val; bizarrely his masquerade works successfully and Kevin is even smitten with Mrs Coleman and her liberalness, much to Louise's indignation. However, both Kevin and Louise start to suspect that the Colemans are hiding something, especially when they are served an awful mishmash soup made of all sorts of ingredients (including hardboiled eggs), and notice that the plates hold pictures of men in disturbing poses... Katherine finally arrives, and everything falls apart: Kevin and Louise find out that Val's parents are gay Jewish nightclub owners, and they decide to leave immediately. But they discover a mass of news crews outside who tracked them down, and duck back in. Although the Keeleys have warmed up to their in-laws, they are now trapped inside and for them to appear in the presence of such people would finish their political careers. Albert hits on a brilliant scheme: he dresses the Keeleys up in drag and gives an impromptu performance, and as the show goes on Katherine successfully gets the Keeleys out of the Birdcage without any interception from reporters. The film ends with Val and Barbara getting married, in an interfaith ceremony presided by both a rabbi and priest, attended by Kevin and Louise, Katherine and Armand and Albert.