Film review: 'Changeling' is true tale of a son lost
Angelina Jolie, who won her Oscar by playing a mentally ill character in "Girl Interrupted," returns to the psych ward for Clint Eastwood's "Changeling," a movie he might have titled "Motherhood Interrupted." It's a period piece, a true-crime mystery and a slice of history, vintage Eastwood in many ways. If the film is too long and a little unwieldy in its late acts, the consummate craftsman in Eastwood glosses over that with detail and righteous rage.
Angelina Jolie, her big red lips and her cloche hat star in "Changeling," a period drama from director Clint Eastwood. Tony Rivetiti Jr.Universal Studios
Rated R for some violent and disturbing content, and language
Length: 140 minutes
Released: October 24, 2008 LimitedScore: 3.5
Cast: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore, Amy Ryan
Director: Clint EastwoodProducer: Clint Eastwood, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard,
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Distributor: Universal Pictures
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Jolie plays Christina Collins, a telephone switchboard supervisor and single mom in 1928 Los Angeles. She has to leave her 9-year-old son, Walter, home one Saturday when she's called in to work. When she gets home, he's missing.
Months of frantic calls ensue, trying to rouse the LAPD into action. A crusading preacher (John Malkovich) takes up the cause. A kid turns up in Illinois and is delivered to mom and the waiting press corps by a press-savvy police department.
"That's not my son," she says.
"You must be mistaken," a pushy cop (Jeffrey Donovan) insists. It's been a few months. The boy has changed. Your memory is playing tricks on you. Besides, he adds, you're a woman. And you know "how women are."
As horrific as losing a child is, imagine losing one and having the absolute authority and influence of the Los Angeles Police Department determined to "make this all go away" by giving you a replacement, insulting you when you make a fuss, sending doctors around to bolster their case and, when you won't play ball, having you institutionalized.
"Changeling" touches on several favorite Eastwood subjects -- crimes against children in particular. But it's worth noting that as good as Jolie is in the lead, Eastwood is no Spielberg when it comes to working with kids.
The mystery here is deep, with layers of meaning built into it. Eastwood gets at psychiatric bullying and gender issues of those dark ages of yore. In casting the always-cagey Malkovich as the preacher who takes on Collins' cause, he suggests that we question the man's motives, that Collins might be a pawn in a larger Los Angeles chess match.
"Changeling" is a movie with no shortage of villains, starting with the police chief (Colm Feore, gaunt and scary). It packages Jolie in flapper attire and red-red lipstick and demands that she cry "I want my son back!" dozens of times, but it's still one of her most empathetic roles. Amy Ryan has the "Angelina Jolie" role in this "Interrupted" mental hospital, the patient in a similar fix, the one who explains this nightmare of powerlessness to the new inmate.
"Changeling" is a fascinating, high-minded and ambitious story, with twists and turns and implications far beyond the "true crime" origins of the tale. That it isn't the emotional, surprising and engrossing Oscar contender Eastwood set out to make is one of the bigger disappointments of the fall.
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