Angelina Jolie was no doubt attracted to the role of Christine Collins in “Changeling” because it gives her the chance to play a fiercely protective mother in a sumptuous period film (it’s set in 1928 Los Angeles). It’s a fitting match for the famously maternal actress whose sensuality and style have always seemed more suited to old Hollywood.Director Clint Eastwood, working from a fact-based script by J. Michael Straczynski, delivers a solidly crafted and beautifully photographed film chock full of period detail. But this story of a missing child and a mother’s determination to find him goes off in several different directions and never really gels. Eastwood mixes in the most disturbing parts of his “Mystic River” into “Changeling” in grisly scenes of child abuse as the police investigate the serial murders of little boys, one of whom could be Collins’ son.
When Collins battles the corrupt LAPD, the film turns into a feminist quest for justice. And for good measure, Eastwood recycles the most harrowing scenes in “Frances” as Collins is thrown into the snake pit by the evil LAPD as punishment for her defiance.
As she did with Marianne Pearl in “A Mighty Heart,” Jolie embraces this passionate portrait of a woman who won’t give up searching for a missing loved one. But Christine Collins is never as complex a character. She’s a single working mother who reluctantly fills in for a sick coworker one day, leaving her nine-year-old son Walter at home in a nice, residential neighborhood.When she returns, the house is eerily empty. Frantic, Collins turns to the police but finds little help. Months later, amid much press hoopla and grandstanding, the police deliver “Walter” to her and smugly ignore her protests that the boy isn’t her son. Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffery Donovan) goes so far as to berate and threaten Collins if she continues to embarrass the LAPD. Collins finally gains an ally in somber Presbyterian minister Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) who has made it his own crusade to expose the widespread corruption in the LAPD.
Since Collins is so completely sympathetic and Captain Jones so completely the villain, there’s little room for growth or nuance. We’re rooting for Collins from the moment she questions the police department’s ineptitude. When Captain Jones has her secretly tossed into a psychiatric ward where the head doctor insists she’s crazy and won’t release her until she admits she wrongfully accused the police of persecution, “Changeling” veers into social justice terrain. Collins meets Carol Dexter, played by Amy Ryan, who is as brilliant in this small, dramatic role as she is in her comic one on TV’s “The Office.” Dexter explains to Collins that she and other women who openly criticized the LAPD for its abuse of power ended up in the nuthouse as retaliation.
Once she’s sprung by Rev. Briegleb amid public support, Collins makes it her personal mission to get Dexter and the other women out, and bring down the LAPD. “Changeling” again changes gears, as another boy comes forth to expose a serial killer who preys on young boys and who may have murdered Walter. The final third of the film cuts between two trials: one for the man accused of murdering three children (none of them Walter) and the police corruption trial in which Collins provides key testimony.
“Changeling” isn’t as powerfully entertaining as, say, “L.A. Confidential” or “Chinatown” in its expose of LAPD corruption, nor does it provide a cathartic arc for Collins who remains right in her convictions from the start and only grows more passionate. One can’t help wishing Eastwood was as sure-handed with the direction of his story as he is with the look of the film, or that Jolie had more to work with. She is terrific, but the film shortchanges her fervor.Source: http://www.wickedlocal.com/
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