Movie Review: A Private War

A Private War (2018) 

Directed by Matthew Heineman

Written by Arash Amel 

Starring Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci 

Release Date November 2nd, 2018

Published November 6th, 2018 

A Private War stars Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) as Marie Colvin, famed war journalist who was killed in a bombing attack in Syria in 2012. To her dying breath, Marie Colvin was a reporter, fighting to bring the facts of the story to the masses with the power of words. It was what she’d done since the 80’s when she became one of the first western journalists to interview Muammar Gaddafi when he was the name in middle eastern terror as the leader of Libya. 

The story begins on a shot of devastation in Homs, Syria where Marie was killed in 2012. We then quickly flashback to 2001 when Marie was reporting on the conflict in East Timor, Sri Lanka. Against the explicit instructions of the government, Marie went to interview members of the Tamil Tigers who were fighting a vicious, inhuman war in East Timor and were ravaged by starvation and violence. 

It was during this event that Marie was nearly killed when government backed forces attacked the rebel guides leading Marie back to a safe area where she was to write and report her story. Even after Marie told the soldiers that she was a journalist, she was nearly struck by an RPG fired by government soldiers. In that attack Marie lost sight in her left eye but still found a way to write 3000 words about the conflict and do so in time for her deadline. 

The attack in Sri Lanka however, would have long term effects on Marie as few stories had. Marie suffered from PTSD, something she dismissed but her repeated nightmares and increased reliance on alcohol indicated was true. Even this was not enough to keep Marie from going to Afghanistan and then Iraq in the wake of the September 11th attacks. It was Marie Colvin and her photographer who, against the explicit instructions of the American government and Iraqi leaders, helped to uncover Saddam Hussein’s horrific mass graves in 2003. 

A Private War bounces around in time to an occasionally confusing degree. The film does use captions to orient us to what time we are in but it’s up to us to catch up to where we are, which might be Marie’s apartment in London in the midst of a nightmare or some foreign journalist hangout in some unnamed war zone. Director Matthew Heineman is a documentarian by trade so perhaps the weaknesses of the story structure of A Private War come from inexperience in the structure of a narrative film as opposed to the more edit heavy word of documentary. 

That said, Heineman is exactly the right director for Marie Colvin’s story. Heineman’s time in the documentary world placed him in many of the same dangerous circles of the Marie Colvin’s of the world. Heineman’s previous documentary feature, City of Ghosts was filmed in Raqqa, Syria among a group of citizen journalists who likely would have been inspired by Marie Colvin had they known her. Raqqa is just 4 hours from Homs, where Marie was killed. 

Heineman’s style is strong, especially considering that the move from the intimate digital of documentary to the more filmic and controlled style of narrative feature can be jarring for some directors. A Private War is a great looking movie and that should come as no surprise as it was lensed by Academy Award winner Robert Richardson, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarentino protégé. The film has a similarly hazy, heady quality to Richardson’s work for Scorsese. 

Rosamund Pike is a complete badass in A Private War. She captures Marie Colvin as a human character in a way that we’re rarely allowed to see a woman in a movie. It’s not merely warts and all,  it’s honesty and bravery and the warts and all. Not only is Pike’s Marie tough, she’s also super sexy in a way that is similar to the swaggering way actors like Richard Gere are sexy when they play rebel journalists in war zones. 

Pike’s femininity is enhanced by her tenacity. The film shows her being bolder and crazier than some of her male counterparts and then shows her completely nude, stripping bare your perceptions of what it means to be tough and feminine. It’s a striking scene and one in which the nudity matters, it’s a demonstration of her character, a statement about her sexuality and desirability and how these are not separate qualities from toughness and intelligence. 

Rosamund Pike is on her way to a Best Actress nomination if there is justice in the world. Her Marie Colvin deserves that. This performance and this person deserve that tribute. It’s a shame that Marie Colvin didn’t receive this kind of recognition when she was alive to revel in it. She had already earned her stripes even before she helped put a face on the crisis in Syria and not merely her own. It was Marie Colvin’s stories about the dead and the dying in Syria that put the crisis in Syria into the homes and minds of the world and in ways many world powers would prefer she hadn’t. 

A Private War is imperfect as a movie, it’s far too episodic in nature to quite satisfy as a narrative feature but Rosamund Pike’s performance goes a long way to correct many of the qualms I had with the narrative structure of the movie. Pike is incredible and for her, A Private War is an absolute must-see.