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By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Thursday, Oct 30, 2008
Changeling is one of those films that haunts the viewer long after it is done. It offers a glaring example of the abuse of power. It presents a dreadful tale of the abuse of children. And, in the end, it asks the audience to consider a fundamental question of what it means to take responsibility for yourself, your actions and for others.
The script by J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) has to cover seven years and a number of twists right out of its real-life story. It's a lot to fit into a movie, even one that runs about 140 minutes. With Clint Eastwood's careful pace, there are scenes that go on too long, and others where we should be spending more time. One or two vignettes seem too blatantly designed to satisfy the audience's need for uplift, as a countermeasure to what is often a grim, frustrating tale.
Still, the movie remains effective overall, especially when you consider the fine lead performance by Angelina Jolie.
Jolie plays Christine Collins, a woman whose young son Walter went missing in 1928. Police efforts eventually turned up a missing boy who the authorities said was the missing Walter. Christine was not convinced and began insisting publicly that she had been given the wrong child. (A changeling, by the way, is a child put in the place of another.) Irritated by her, and concerned over the bad press she might generate, L.A. police Capt. J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan of Burn Notice) put Collins in a psychopathic ward to get her either to shut up or to say the police had done nothing wrong.
The whole saga might have ended there. But it was not without further twists, including the discovery of a serial killer named Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) who had murdered as many as 20 boys.
But was Walter one of his victims? And if so, had the police erred so badly that they had caused his demise?
Changeling cannot answer all the questions about the case, because the real case never answered some of the questions. That said, while Changeling is being billed as ''a true story,'' in the movies, that is not the same as a factual one. The film eliminates a significant character, smooths out some complications and glosses over the fate of a couple of the villainous characters.
Still, this is familiar territory for Eastwood, who has looked before at a missing-child story (Mystic River), the clash between truth and public image (Flags of Our Fathers) and the core matter of personal responsibility (Million Dollar Baby in particular).
When Collins insists that the found child is not hers, she is taking responsibility for her son — but is accused by the police of shirking her responsibilities. Jones and his higher-ups at the police force refuse to take responsibility for their errors. A nagging question in the latter part of the movie is whether Northcott will take responsibility for his dreadful actions, and specifically what happened to Walter.
Jolie gives a very good, carefully modulated performance in a role that could easily have spun into hysteria. Her Christine Collins is strong, dutiful and smart — and someone who takes to heart her own maxim that you never start a fight but you always finish one. She is good in some of the big, dramatic moments and touching in the quiet ones — for example, when Collins spends her work breaks calling different cities, hoping that Walter has been found somewhere.
She is surrounded by other able actors who, like Eastwood himself, are able to do a great deal with silence. You see the glimmers of Jones' conscience on Donovan's pain-stricken face. Amy Ryan, Oscar-nominated for Gone Baby Gone and more recently seen on The Office, is fine as a woman who befriends Collins in the psych ward. John Malkovich, as a crusading preacher who battles the corruption and violence of the police department, is stuck with too many expository speeches. Still, he's Malkovich.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Changeling is one of those films that haunts the viewer long after it is done. It offers a glaring example of the abuse of power. It presents a dreadful tale of the abuse of children. And, in the end, it asks the audience to consider a fundamental question of what it means to take responsibility for yourself, your actions and for others.
Get the full article here.
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