Clint Eastwood directs Oscar® winner Angelina Jolie and Oscar® nominee John Malkovich in a riveting and unforgettable true story. Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son; but he isn’t her boy. Driven by one woman’s relentless quest for the truth, the case exposes a world of corruption, captivates the public and changes Los Angeles forever. This emotionally gripping story illustrates the profound power of a mother’s love in “a mesmerizing film that burns in the memory” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).Clint Eastwood’s mastery as a director, established over the past decade and a half with Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, and others, continues with Changeling, a 2008 offering based on a shocking but all-too-true story about child abduction and police corruption in 1920s Los Angeles. Single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, excellent in a role with somewhat limited parameters) finds her 9-year-old son, Walter, missing when she returns home from work one day. She files a report with the Los Angeles Police Department, an outfit that was wildly unpopular at the time (in his regular radio broadcast, a crusading pastor played by John Malkovich decries the force as “violent and corrupt,” adding that “our protectors are our brutalizers”). When a child roughly matching Walter’s description turns up in Illinois five months later, the LAPD, intent on salvaging its tattered reputation, is only too eager to claim that he is Collins’ missing child. Little matters that he’s three inches shorter, is circumcised (Walter wasn’t), and fails to pass muster with Walter’s dentist, schoolteacher, and others; the cops, in particular the odious Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), insist that the mistake is Christine’s, not theirs. What follows is almost too nightmarish to believe–except that it actually happened. Exasperated by Collins’ continued claim that “Walter” is a fraud, they trot out a doctor to reinforce the bogus ID, declare her unfit as a mother, and finally have her committed to a local psychopathic ward. Through it all, Collins, bolstered by the pastor and thousands of outraged Angelenos, refuses to sign a document that would exonerate the police for their egregious error. As for Walter, it’s only when the LAPD’s seemingly only honest detective (Michael Kelly) takes matters into his own hands that the grisly mystery of the child’s fate begins to be solved. That would have been a good place for the film to conclude, too. Unfortunately, it goes on for more than another half hour, with innumerable false endings that add nothing to the story and could just as easily have been summarized with a few sentences before the final credits. That flaw aside (and it’s a major one), Changeling is a powerful film, with a realistic period feel, a wonderfully muted vibe and color palette, and an understated score by Eastwood himself. –Sam Graham
Stills from Changeling (Click for larger image)
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Buy “Changeling “ For Only $11.25
March 29, 2008
#1
This is a very boring and pointless movie. Don’t waste your time. To see Eastwood’s best movie, rent “Flags of Our Fathers.” (I almost walked out of Changeling.)
March 29, 2008
#2
I walked out of this film in the theatre. I just couldn’t watch Jolie put her hand over her mouth and cry one more time. I hear that Clint Eastwood is retiring from the movies. Thank God. His bleak vision of the world has bored me since “The Unforgiven” right through “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Enough is enough!
March 29, 2008
#3
I would love to rate this product highly but, I never recieved it. I ordered it in early april and it’s approaching the end of may. Payment has been recieve however, the package has not. The worst service I’ve recieved on amazon!!!
March 29, 2008
#4
Pomimo faktu ze pare dni temu ugryzl mnie pies i moja lewa noga przechodzi przez kolejne fazy umiarkowanego zwatpienia, spiesze dostaczyc moj komentarz do filmu Clinta Eastwooda ‘Changeling’ (Dvd, 2009). Film z udzialem Angeliny i Malkowicza jest oparty na prawdzie historycznej o tyle, na ile wyglada wyglada sztucznie, niczym przyslowiowa ‘proteza zebowa Cioci Kloci’.
Eastwood opowiada historie matki (Angelina Jolie), ktora poszukujac zaginionego synka mocuje sie ze skorumpowanym Departamentem Policji w Los Angeles, pod koniec lat 20-tych zeszlego stulecia. Na pomoc samotnej matce przychodzi lokalny pastor (John Malkovich), wytykajacy w swoich mszalnych i radiowych kazaniach polityczne kumoterstwo miejscowych wladz.
Zdziebko napieta akcja filmu oraz wprawnie dobrana garderoba, nie sa jednak w stanie zamaskowac ordynarnego braku maszyny produkujacej gaz cebulowy we lzawych zblizeniach Angeliny. Rezyser wraz z producentami filmu wydaja sie obrazac jego odbiorcow w sposob jawnie nieskrepowany, wypychajac w naszym kierunku calkiem odwodniona chale.
Pogryziony.
March 29, 2008
#5
“Changeling,” the latest endeavor from director Clint Eastwood, is not only about the ordeal a loving mother, played with determined passion by Angelina Jolie, suffers after her young boy (Gattlin Griffith) goes missing, and the unusual lengths she must go to recover him, particularly after the Los Angeles Police Department closes the case after uniting her with a boy who does not appear to actually be her own. It is also about the lengths people in power will go to preserve that power and their prestige. In the real world, outside of movies, we live in one of the eras in which citizens throughout the US are as distrustful as ever of those with power and influence and this film can be taken to also symbolize a kind of indictment of such people and the abuse of that power.
Indeed, almost everything within the film is calculated to hit extra hard at our emotional chords, to tug our heartstrings in support of the heroine, fill us with rage and disgust at the sight of the actions of the powerful leaders in the story, and, of course, jerk the tears from eyes. Eastwood’s more recent films in particular are known to contain some sentimentality but, until now, he’s refrained from hitting us over the head with the overexuberant brand of saccharin, meritless emotion found in many other films based on real-life accounts of peril and injustice. Yet, that is a particular test “Changeling” does not quite pass, though it is still far above some of the biggest and worst weepies in the room (“Tsotsi,” anyone? Or, perhaps you would prefer shedding tears to “Central Station”?).
Part of the problem is the way the central character is portrayed, not entirely due to Jolie’s work, but also to the fact that she, and as such her character, comes across as rather too glamorous for the predicaments she finds herself in. Even during the most trying scenes, such as searching frantically for her missing son, dealing with a police department that is, at best, apathetic and, at worst, one of the chief causes of grief Christine Collins (Jolie) and the audience are made to suffer, she seems oddly beautiful in a way that leaves a disconnect, to the detriment of any realism the movie may have otherwise had, with the drama that unfolds.
As was the case in last year’s “A Mighty Heart,” in which the actress delivers another impassioned performance as a woman who is, in many ways, in a similar situation–tragically wronged by circumstances and people beyond her control–it is often difficult to see past her movie-star glitter to get to the raw agony at the core of her character. A large part of this has to do with how the film visually presents her. Her hair and makeup are just right enough to flatter her, even during her most trying times within a grim psychiatric ward, many of the patients of which arrived unwillingly mainly because they were an inconvenience to the police and others in power. She is always filmed by the director of photography, Tom Stern, to look beautiful, almost saintly. That’s not a criticism of his work in the film generally; it appropriately renders a vivid interpretation of a 1920s Los Angeles reminiscent of old Hollywood pictures. However, it does distract from Jolie.
I don’t know if Jolie plans to take on similar roles in other films like this any time soon, but if she does it would be best for all involved if she transforms herself according to the demands of her character–with the help, whenever necessary, of the filmmakers. Too many of her performances feel adequate but also seem as if they could have been more profound than they were.
The other actors in this movie–and, consequently, their characters–suffer less from the glamour effect. John Malkovich, as Rev. Gustav Briegleb, who adopts Collins’ search for the truth as his own mission–and, by extension, that of his church–infuses a more fiery brand of righteous indignity into the story, in case that of Collins herself, along with the situations that develop in the course of the story, don’t make you angry enough.
In terms of emotional depth, many of the police and those associated with them are not much more than cardboard cutouts, especially compared to Jolie’s palpable emotions. Jeffrey Donovan is Captain J. J. Jones, Collins’ main contact at the LAPD who, when questioned about the identity of the boy given to her in a highly-public photo-op, steadfastly dismisses the notion that he and his unquestioningly proud colleagues, in their quest to quickly pacify the mother, may have made mistakes, and, when confronted with the fact such mistakes were made, declares Collins insane, ordering her sent to an asylum against her will. Colm Feore is chief of police James E. Davis, Jones’ boss who is determined to keep the corrupt department in the best light, at least until Mayor Cryer (Reed Birney) wins his reelection bid. Dr Jonathan Steele is the head of a psychiatry ward that owes its allegiance completely to the police department. He is played by Denis O’Hare in a way that banishes any trace of humanity from the character and fills the void with nothing but contempt. The main exception to the overwhelmingly mean and callous police team turns out to be Michael Kelly as Det. Lester Ybarra, who makes an important discovery during the course of the Collins case.
Other key characters include Carol Dexter (Amy Ryan, edgy, moving, real and, as usual, unpretentious–a good example to follow), a woman who befriends Collins at the psychiatry ward; and those played by Colby French, Eddie Alderson, and Devon Conti.
The movie is obviously being pushed for the Oscars, especially for Jolie. There’s even a scene in which Collins listens to the Academy Awards broadcast. It’s an exercise in naval-gazing, and it is rather irritating when filmmakers place marketing campaigns for Oscars within the very films for which they would like an award. It’s worse than product placement. On the other hand, due to the lighthearted nature of the scene and the fact that it occurs late in a film that is unrelentingly heavy both before and afterward, the scene could also be seen as comedy relief, a welcome respite from nonstop drama; but the same effect could have been achieved without so blatantly screaming for an Oscar nomination.
Despite the objections, the film is by no means ruined by the glamour and the oversentimentality. Rather, these are mainly a distraction from what is otherwise a compelling and memorable story, written by J. Michael Straczynski, otherwise told relatively well. The basic story is perhaps the best thing about the film, more likely than not because it it presents an inherently compelling situation. The way scenes are intricately intercut (by editors Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach) so as to play off each other is an old tool of storytelling that is used to good effect here, though more for dramatic effect than as an essential method of conveying the plot. Overall, the film could have been more efficient, with a few minutes being trimmed from the film, most obviously the aforementioned Oscar scene. Also, some sequences do feel repetitious in plot and especially in the emotions evoked.
In the end, while “Changeling” is an engrossing story, its distractions interfere with the film, rendering it far from perfect, and, ultimately, minor Eastwood.