Product Description
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Clint Eastwood directs this thriller based on true events that
took place in 1920s California. Angelina Jolie stars as Christine
Collins, a mother who thinks her prayers have been answered when
her kipped nine-year-old son is returned to her. However, she
quickly realises that the boy with whom she has been reunited is
not in fact her son. She must now face a corrupt force and
a seemingly immovable legal system to continue the fight to find
her own son. Slandered by the press as unstable and delusional,
she eventually finds an ally in activist Reverend Briegleb (John
Malkovich), who helps her take on the authorities and track down
her missing son.
.co.uk Review
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Clint Eastwood’s mastery as a director, established over the
past decade and a half with Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby,
Letters from Iwo Jima, and others, continues with Changeling, a
2008 offering based on a shocking but all-too-true story about
child abduction and corruption in 1920s Los Angeles.
Single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, excellent in a
role with somewhat limited parameters) finds her 9-year-old son,
Walter, missing when she returns home from work one day. She
files a report with the Los Angeles Department, an outfit
that was wildly unpopular at the time (in his regular radio
broadcast, a crusading pastor played by John Malkovich decries
the force as "violent and corrupt," adding that "our protectors
are our brutalizers"). When a child roughly matching Walter’s
description turns up in Illinois five months later, the LAPD,
intent on salvaging its tattered reputation, is only too eager to
cl that he is Collins’ missing child. Little matters that he’s
three inches shorter, is circumcised (Walter wasn’t), and fails
to pass muster with Walter’s dentist, schoolteacher, and others;
the cops, in particular the odious Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey
Donovan), insist that the mistake is Christine’s, not theirs.
What follows is almost too nightmarish to believe--except that it
actually happened. Exasperated by Collins’ continued cl that
"Walter" is a fraud, they trot out a doctor to reinforce the
bogus ID, declare her unfit as a mother, and finally have her
committed to a local psychopathic ward. Through it all, Collins,
bolstered by the pastor and thousands of outraged Angelenos,
refuses to sign a document that would exonerate the for
their egregious error. As for Walter, it’s only when the LAPD’s
seemingly only honest detective (Michael Kelly) takes matters
into his own hands that the grisly mystery of the child’s e
begins to be solved. That would have been a good place for the
film to conclude, too. Unfortunately, it goes on for more than
another half hour, with innumerable false endings that add
nothing to the story and could just as easily have been
summarised with a few sentences before the final credits. That
flaw aside (and it’s a major one), Changeling is a powerful film,
with a realistic period feel, a wonderfully muted vibe and color
palette, and an understated score by Eastwood himself. --Sam
Graham