Reviews & Previews - Changeling

Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 06:00 PM

Changeling

By: S. Tran

Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan
Directed By: Clint Eastwood
Running Time: 141 minutes
Rated: Rated R

Tedious Drama

This is Clint Eastwood's latest film, based on the true story of Christine Collins (Jolie), whose son Walter was kidnapped in 1928. The real story is both shocking and sad, yet the movie itself tests the viewer's patience and offers relatively little gripping drama given the source material.

Collins was a single mother who faced the ultimate nightmare when her son was abducted. The story becomes even more bizarre as she is pitted against the corrupt Los Angeles police department which tries to force her to accept another boy they find as her son. As she attempts to get the police to admit their mistake she finds herself being persecuted by the same people who should be trying to help her.

By far the most effective elements of the movie are the 1930's era sets and the mood created by the interaction between men and women in the days before equal rights. From the opening shots Eastwood does a great job of transporting the viewer to an earlier period. Everything about the film feels authentic. Adding to this unsettling feeling that you have truly traveled back in time are all the scenes where we see women as being treated as second class citizens and the pervasive sexism of the time.

Unfortunately the film starts to fall apart due to the uneven acting. While Jolie is her usual competent self we're too distracted by Jeffrey Donovon as Captain J.J. Jones, the police captain who tries to force Collins to accept the wrong boy as her son despite all the evidence to contrary. Donovon's performance is so over the top that he made me laugh as he blustered his way through his scenes. There is no subtlety in his performance, just menacing prohibition era stereotypes. I kept expecting him to start calling every woman "dame" and talk about their "gams".

The problem isn't just restricted to Donovan however. It seemed that everyone in the movie was playing some kind of archtype so that we would know who we were supposed to root for. The bad guys were really bad and the good guys were really good. The only exception was Malkovich as Reverend Briegleb, who came to aid Collins as he worked to expose the corruption in the police force. Even though he is firmly on Collin's side Malkovich somehow manages to make us wonder what his real intentions are.

Beyond the acting the story suffers because of the way it drags on. While certain elements of Collin's story are interesting the screenwriter seemed to think that every little detail deserved some time. The other problem with the story was the subplot involving a serial killer connected to the kidnapping which began to intrude on the story involving Collins. It also made the movie longer than it needed to be and the film may have been more effective if that part of the story was told more quickly.

The overall result was that the movie lacked an effective ending. Every time I thought the movie was over it would move on to the next scene, so instead of one climax we were presented with a series of mini-climaxes, none of which were any more satisfying than the one before it.

2 and a half stars out of 5.