Ryan McNeil
While reflecting on THE CHANGELING, I couldn’t help but think about this conversation from the TV show “Six Feet Under”.
Think about this: If you are a woman whose husband has died, you’re called a widow. If you’re a child whose parents have died, you’re called an orphan. But there’s no name for the parent of a child who has died…why is that? Is it maybe because such a situation is so very awful, that nobody ever wanted to give a name to it?”
THE CHANGELING is the story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother living in 1928 Los Angeles. She is a devoted mother who does whatever she can for her son, even working as hard as she can to provide for him. One saturday afternoon, she’s asked to cover a shift in a pinch. She doesn’t want to go, she’s actually promised her son Walter that they’ll go to the movies that day. But she’s a hard worker, and can use the money, so she reluctantly leaves her nine year old son home alone and goes to work. When she returns home around suppertime, her heart sinks when she discovers Walter is gone without a trace.
The LAPD begin an investigation which turns out quite fruitless and drags on for months without result. Not long after calls of incompetence start to surface, Christine gets a call at work – her son has been found. She rushes to the train station to meet him, but she’s running into certain disappointment: The boy the LAPD present her with is not her son. The LAPD convince her otherwise, and twist her arm into taking him home. She co-operates, but it doesn’t take more than one night for her to get physical proof that this is the wrong boy.
From there, the story only goes further down the spiral. The police don’t care for her accusations that they further screwed things up. Unfortunately for Christine, with a system as corrupt as this, it doesn’t take much for a person to go from disagreeable to insane in the eyes of the law. She is committed to a women’s psych ward, and left to learn her lesson in a place that nobody knows she been sent to, all with the knowledge that her son still hasn’t been found.
THE CHANGELING is a very sad movie, one where every scene twists your guts into knots of pathos. It’s a story about a simpler time, when people didn’t close the doors to their houses let alone lock them. Today, if a mother left her nine year old alone to go work a six hour shift, she could well be coming home to a visit from child services. In 1928 however, it was just par for the course.
The movie rests entirely on Jolie’s performance, unsurprising since there are precious few scenes she isn’t a part of. It’s some of the best acting she’s ever done, which is to say she finds the sweet spot between blubbering hysteric and stoic shock-victim. Unfortunately the story gives her about seven “Where’s my son”s too many, but I can’t hang that on her. She coveys the deepest type of sadness with her eyes, but still tries to function with a shred of grace. This is an instance of a bright shiney movie star reaching back that little bit further for a moving performance. One only hopes she can do it more often.
One oddity I found with the movie, is that it feels as though it’s about to wrap up a few times. The story seems complete, and the music starts to rise…but rather than credits rolling, the next chapter begins. One such instance includes a scene that I would have cut altogether since it seems rather unbelievable and included as a potential Oscar clip (if you’ve seen the movie – it happens in a prison interrogation room). With those minor flaws in mind, it’s another admirable job of directing by Clint Eastwood who became one of this decade’s best directors in a big ‘ol hurry. He’s had a knack lately for choosing some truly moving stories, and filming them in a very painterly way. His movies aren’t perfect – as my fiancee loves to remind me – but lately they’ve been very evocative and very memorable.
One last note – while I truly loved this film, and reccomend it highly, I think it’s a heavy contender for worst poster of the year. Based on this one-sheet, I’d wager that I was about to watch a film where Jolie plays a sleepy giant…and don’t even get me started on the tiny, shadow-y kid in the lower right corner. I will never understand why the default for movie marketers is to just splash an image on the star’s face and let the movie sell itself. Hell, the still shot I used at the top of the review would have made a better poster!
Go see this movie – but shield your eyes from the poster.
I very much enjoyed this movie – and I will post some thoughts on my blog. I felt that it was a little disjointed – a great story – but I didn’t think it melded enough to being a GREAT film – just really good.
This is a good movie with a good story. Angelina Jolie is good in the role of Christine Collins