Changeling (2008)

I ws more then prepared to think of Changeling as a vanity project, a long circulating screenplay finally brought to film in service of Angelina Jolie’s Oscar nomination. However I had neglected to consider three major factors: First, screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fam would not have wanted to get this movie made for a quarter century if there wasn’t a good story there, and knowing a good story is something for which experience should have taught me to trust him implicitly. Second, Clint Eastwood directed films are always worth seeing, even if you have no idea what the stories about or who’s in it, its in your interest to plop that money on the counter and see it, it will be worth it. Thirdly, Angelina Jolie really is a good actress worthy of being taken seriously, she is so much the ‘celebrity’ that sometimes we forgot she is a legitimate thespian.

Changeling is a beautiful looking movie, I always prefer seeing special effects used to create the past rather then something that never was, and the 1920's Los Angelas of this picture is not quite like anything else you’ve seen. There’s good performances here, mostly Jolies, but also John Malkovich as a crusading Presbyterian minister, a reformist type of clergyman we seldom see these days. Jason Butler Harneris also quite good in a part that emerges in the later half of the film, while watching him I couldn’t help but notice his resemblance to the late Robert Walker, and if they ever made a Jennifer Jones bio-pic he’d be a perfect choice to play husband number one.

The story of Changeling is the true story of Mrs.Christine Collins, a single working mother who returns home from a reluctantly taken extra shift at the phone company, to find her beloved nine year old son Walter missing. An investigation is mounted, and five months later the police inform Mrs. Collins that they have found her son in the company of a drifter in De Kaleb, Illionis. The boy is brought to Los Angels by train, but when he arrives at the station the mother instantly knows that this is not the son, despite his protesting to the contrary. To avoid a scene, the notoriously corrupt police department who had intended to use this ‘reuniting’ as a photo op, convinces the emotionally shocked Mrs. Collins to take the boy home on a ‘trial basis’. When she is able to provide physical evidence that this boy is not her son, he’s three inches shorter and circumcised (which she discovers giving him a bath), she returns to report this to the police department. There Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) attempts to convince her that this is her son, first through logic, then pressure, then scorn. Mrs. Collins finds an allie in ministerJohn Malkovich, who wants to expose the police force, and Captain Jones launches a crusade to discredit the ‘ungrateful and probably immoral, reluctant mother’. Eventually Mrs. Collins is forcefully committed to a mental institution.

At this point our story intersects with another true story of the period to provide a turning point, but I can not go into this ‘secondary story’ without giving to much away. Suffice it to say, its quite the twist, and a compelling piece of largely forgotten history. Changeling is quite the movie, as said above worth your time. Jolie will get her Oscar nomination, and if I were an Academy voter, I might very well cast my ballot for her. 4 ½ out of 5.