Clint Eastwood’s Changeling opens in Los Angeles in 1928, when single mother Christine Collins leaves for work and returns to find her 9-year-old son, Walter, gone. Five months later the LAPD hands her back a boy she knows is not her child. That is the hook, and it is a good one. Eighteen years on, the film still rests on it.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures.
Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins
Jolie plays Collins as a woman who recovers from adversity and fights the odds, which is what drew her to the script. She joined in March 2007 after five actresses campaigned for the part, including Reese Witherspoon and Hilary Swank. She was reluctant at first, as a mother, then signed on for Eastwood. She based the performance on her own mother, who died in 2007. It is the film’s strongest asset.
Jeffrey Donovan Plays Captain J.J. Jones
Donovan plays Jones, head of the Juvenile Division, who insists the boy is Walter and pressures Collins to take him home “on a trial basis.” Jones produces a doctor who claims trauma shrank the boy’s spine. Donovan chose to play him with a slight Irish accent, a decision the actor made himself, and quotes the real Jones’ public statements. When Collins tells her story to the press, Jones has her committed to the psychiatric ward.
The Wineville Case Behind the Story
Straczynski learned the story in 1983 as a correspondent for TV-Cable Week. He wrote the script in 2006, drawing on thousands of pages of documentation. Ron Howard was set to direct before scheduling conflicts brought in Eastwood. Universal financed and distributed it.
Key facts:
– Runtime: 142 minutes
– Release: 2008
– Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
– Score: 6.3/10
What Works and What Doesn’t
- Jolie’s performance — the film’s center.
- John Malkovich as Reverend Gustav Briegleb, cast against type.
- The period detail, down to Jolie learning to roller skate in high heels for the telephone exchange scenes.
- The pacing — 142 minutes is a long sit.
The Psychiatric Ward
The strongest material is the ward, a major setting where Carol tells Collins she is one of several women sent there for challenging police authority. Dr. Jonathan Steele diagnoses her as delusional, forces medication on her, and says he will only release her if she signs an admission. That is the film’s actual subject.
Where the Film Lands
Changeling has a real story and a real star, and it uses both well enough. Jolie carries the film, and Malkovich gives Briegleb weight. But the film stays passive, much as Jolie found Collins passive. It observes corruption rather than pressing into it.
The LAPD’s handling of Collins is the reason the story matters. The ward is the film’s center of gravity, and the film never quite closes the distance between what was done to her and what it wants to say about it.
6.3 of 10.
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