A Private War (Film)
Rosamund Pike is perfect as war journalist Marie Colvin in the new film ‘A Private War.’
Pike is just so good in this film, bringing Colvin to life on the big screen, that it’s quite a shock that she has not been nominated for any of the major acting awards for this film. Sure, Olivia Colman was very good as Anne, Queen of Britian in ‘The Favourite’ while Glenn Close was memorable in ‘The Wife,’ but Pike, in my opinion, had more of a challenging role playing a woman in a man’s industry. Colvin, who was an American war journalist, worked as a foreign affairs correspondent for the British newspaper The Sunday Times. She was always determined to get the story, whether her work took her to Syria, Iraq, or Libya (where she famously interviewed Muammar Gaddafi). Even after she lost her left eye in a blast in Sri Lanka she never gave up, and the black eye patch she wore distinguished her from all of the other war journalists.
First time feature film director Matthew Heineman brilliantly brings her story to the big screen, and Pike really nails it. Along with her photographer Paul Conroy (played by British heartthrob Jamie Dornan), we see Colvin trying to get the story, while leaving the safe confines of her homely Hammersmith terrace house for the dirty and dangerous battlegrounds and war fields of the middle east. We follow her, and Conroy, avoiding bullets and missiles, putting their lives at risk.
Based on the Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War,” this biographical film follows Colvin to her final assignment in Homs, Syria, where she was killed during a siege, at the age of 56. Pike is just simply amazing as Colvin.
