Angelina Jolie in Changeling
True Story of Notorious L.A. Kidnapping Directed by Clint Eastwood
Nov 15, 2008
In the spring of 1928, single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) returns home late one afternoon to find her nine-year-old son Walter missing. The L.A.P.D. is slow to respond, and Christine is left to agonize.
Five months later, the very political, corrupt department trumpets its “triumph” – the boy has been located in De Kalb, Illinois, abandoned by a transient at a roadside diner.
Angelina Jolie's Horror
But when department Chief Davis (Colm Feore) stages a media event – in those days, a gaggle of newspaper reporters and “photogs” – at the boy’s train station arrival, Christine is horrified to find the boy is not her son.
Her protests are dismissed by Capt. J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), who urges the confused mother to take the boy home. Maybe, with a few days, she’ll realize he really is her son.
He is not. While this new boy vaguely resembles Walter, he’s three inches shorter and a bath reveals that, unlike her son, this boy has been circumsized.
Echoes of Roman Polanski Classic
This thriller begins to pick up traction in the second act, as the mystery deepens and Christine’s sanity is questioned – attacked, really – by a police department strangely willing to manipulate people and events in order to spare itself embarrassment, while putting an innocent woman through hell. Not to mention ignoring the possibility the real Walter might still be alive somewhere.
Along the way, we travel in a corrupt and heartless Los Angeles that in many ways pre-ordains the events of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, set just a few years later.
Screenwriter Michael Straczynski has done a superb job of researching this notorious but now-obscure case and bringing to life a time and place seeming both soothingly familiar and oddly exotic.
Vintage Los Angeles Recreated
The film is gorgeously shot, alternating between black and white, suggestive pastels -- for establishing shots of L.A. City Hall, the skyline and various neighborhoods -- and vivid color. (Has anyone ever looked as good in bright red lipstick as Angelina Jolie?)
Among supporting players, the talented Amy Ryan – so good in last year’s Gone Baby Gone – stands out as a prostitute. It’s a performance that could have succumbed to caricature, were it not for some smart choices by a gifted actor and thoughtful director. John Malkovich turns in another mannered performance as a radio preacher who takes up Jolie’s cause. And Jason Butler Harner is skin-crawlingly effective as the grinning villain of the piece, evil on an Iagan level.
Ron Howard Was Original Director
Changeling was supposed to have been directed by Ron Howard. But due to a scheduling conflict, Eastwood was among several directors approached to take over – and he jumped at the chance. Eastwood has done a great justice to a film about injustice, and its clear his affection for and fascination with L.A. of that era is evident in every frame.
Eastwood also wrote the score. Its main theme, with a four-note signature repeated throughout the film, is appropriate and effective with one caveat: the four-note sequence is nearly identical to that of the 1980s TV hit Moonlighting, which is a bit disconcerting, no pun intended.
Companion to L.A. Confidential, Chinatown
Certain plot turns ring false in Changeling, and there are three logical places to conclude the film – which, as they whiz past, make you think you’re watching The Movie That Wouldn’t End. But they’re not enough to dislodge the sense what you’ve seen is a powerful, smart and well-made film.
With its themes of public corruption, depravity and moral decay, coupled with the Eastwood’s loving attention to period detail and recreation of 1928 Los Angeles, the film is a perfect companion piece to the king of all L.A.-based true life stories, Chinatown. Add in L.A. Confidential and you have a period-piece triple-feature for the ages.
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