Director Clint Eastwood’s lengthy, straightforward period drama “Changeling” is hardly an agent of cinematic change. But it is solid, old-school, epic storytelling boosted by another powerfully luminous lead performance by Angelina Jolie, an exceptionally well-selected supporting ensemble and consummate production values.
Thanks to some good luck and good reporting by its screenwriter, former Los Angeles journalist J. Michael Straczynski, it dredges up a seminal but forgotten case from the late 1920s. The interesting true saga around the investigation of a missing 9-year-old boy ended up transforming the city.
Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) turns to the LAPD for help when her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) disappears. But what she doesn’t know, despite the activism of prominent local radio personality Reverend Briegleb (John Malkovich), is that the force and the political machine behind it are terribly corrupt, inept and perhaps even criminal. Months following Walter’s disappearance, after the cops have been embarrassed by the botched investigation, hard-bitten police captain J.J. Jones (played with quiet menace by Jeffrey Donovan) suddenly presents Christine with a child he identifies as Walter (Devon Conti).
When Christine dares to continue to assert that the boy isn’t hers, risking further humiliation for Jones and the force in the media, he is able to eschew all due process with a stroke of a pen to have her committed to the city’s insane asylum, His casual condemnation exposes the unquestioned sexism of the era, which comes along with scenes of psychiatric barbarism against women that might have been taken straight out of 1948’s “Snake Pit” or 1982’s “Frances.”
Meanwhile, one good detective in the department (Michael Kelly) stumbles onto the horrific deeds of serial child killer Gordon Northcott (with an indelible madness portrayed by Jason Butler Harner), The discovery will have a huge effect as Christine Collins refuses to give up the search for her beloved boy. Jolie’s incredible, evocative face brims with this heroine’s pain and determination, centering the whole piece.
The 78-year-old Eastwood continues his astonishing late-in-life roll with “Changeling.” Though it lacks the narrative cohesion and flooding emotionalism of his “Million Dollar Baby” and near-perfect masterpiece “Mystic River,” today’s sometimes slow-moving offering does remind that big, elaborately appointed studio productions with mesmerizing, larger-than-life movie stars like Jolie challenge the need for flashy special effects or pandering potty humor or gratuitous gore. An authentic narrative, fine acting and stunning cinematography should always be enough — as they are here.
Quick info
‘Changeling’
4 out of 5 Stars
Stars: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan
Director: Clint Eastwood
Rated R for some violent and disturbing content, and language
Running Time: 141 minutes
