Movie Review - Changeling

Viewing the trailer for this movie, I was uncertain whether to see it or not, but a Clint Eastwood directed film, along with an Angelina Jolie performance, is always worth checking out. Jolie stars as Christine Collins in a true story about a missing boy, a corrupt police force and a ranch of horrors in 1928 Los Angeles. Working as a phone operator manager, Christine is a single mom who must leave her young son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) at home when she's called in to work on a weekend, only to find him gone when she returns. The frantic mother scours the neighborhood but is forced to wait 24 hours before officially reporting the kid as missing. Unfortunately for Christine, the LAPD has recently suffered several public relations fiascos, including charges of violent behavior toward citizens, so a collision course is set up between a police department desperate for good press and a devastated mother who only wants the return of her beloved son. The boy is quickly recovered by the LAPD, but the anticipated joy of a reunion with Walter evaporates when the kid who shows up is a complete stranger to Christine. Despite her insistence that this boy is not her missing son, Christine is persuaded to take him into her home anyway in order to avoid yet another public embarrassment for the police force. The extent to which this hapless woman is punished, including incarceration in a mental hospital, for merely trying to recover her son (while confronting the LAPD) becomes the focus of the film. An additional storyline involving a deserted ranch full of empty chicken coops and dark secrets may hold the answer to what happened to Walter.

Although this movie isn't up there with the best of Eastwood's films, there are many things to like about it. The casting is perfect right down to the smallest roles with supporting players such as Michael Kelly (Detective Lester Ybarra), Devon Conti (the wrong boy returned to Christine), Jason Butler Harner (Gordon Northcott, resident of the ranch), John Malkovich (a local activist minister who provides aid to Christine) and Amy Ryan (a fellow "prisoner" in the mental hospital) contributing outstanding performances. The period details are impeccable, along with a nice, understated score (also from Eastwood) plus the chance for Angelina to show that she's more than just the mother of millions of kids. She's an actress of exceptional skill, but there were times when her character became a bit weepy and melodramatically emotional. One of my problems was that the secondary storyline about the ranch and what happened there was more interesting than the main focus concerning the child's disappearance.

Things to love about this movie: Period touches such as phone operator managers on roller skates and old time street cars; a stand out performance from young Eddie Alderson as a pivotal character who shows up in connection with the ranch
Things to hate about this movie: The LAPD characters, with the exception of Detective Ybarra, were villainous to the point of caricature; scenes in the mental hospital were also overdone with lots of scenery chewing plus every cliche in the book
Pleasant surprises: Some really scary stuff featuring a maniac with cleavers and axes
Unpleasant surprises: The courtroom scenes in which Christine's predicament was brought to light were a bit anticlimactic; a scene where a back lot with a backdrop is clearly standing in for 1920/1930 Vancouver