Directed by:
Clint EastwoodScreenplay:
J. Michael StraczynskiCinematography:
Tom SternComposer:
Clint EastwoodCast:
Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Michael Kelly, Colm Feore, Jason Butler Harner, Amy Ryan, Geoff Pierson, Denis O'Hare, Frank Wood (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Clint Eastwood directs this thriller based on true events that took place in 1920s California. Angelina Jolie stars as Christine Collins, a mother who thinks her prayers have been answered when her kidnapped nine-year-old son is returned to her. However, she quickly realises that the boy with whom she has been reunited is not in fact her son. She must now face a corrupt police force and a seemingly immovable legal system to continue the fight to find her own son. Slandered by the press as unstable and delusional, she eventually finds an ally in activist Reverend Briegleb (John Malkovich), who helps her take on the authorities and track down her missing son. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Reviews (12)
A formally smooth drama with a strong premise, hurt a little but an overly sweeping and inconsistent script. There are chilling and breathtaking scenes followed by more protracted ones, which somewhat bothered, because they don’t carry on with what the previous scene set up. I’d compare it to a car waiting at a traffic light: as soon as it starts, it has to stop again, and again. Angelina delivers a solid, though not Oscar-worthy performance (see Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road). The very fitting music is also worth mentioning, in the last shot it builds a very strong background with similar results as in Gran Torino (you’ll know if you’ve seen it). Changeling is a very good film, but I can’t give it the highest rating because some of this year’s Oscar hopefuls have had a bigger effect on me.
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I appreciate how Clint's slow but focused direction manages to fully serve the story, telling it from the position of an unbiased observer while letting the viewer deal with the emotional whirlwind on their own. What I appreciate less is the fact that the last quarter is a bit of an appendix - a place that just is, but somehow the viewer can do without it, perhaps because the cards have been dealt long ago and nothing can surprise him anymore. Then there is Angelina, and although she’s great, she’s still and always just "Angelina™," which can't be hidden even by the elegant hat and the period hair and make-up. However, I do admit that the first two-thirds or so of the film hit me hard.
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An unmissable experience. A packed movie theater (what a miracle, everybody was silent, no rustling, unbelievable...), two girls accompanying me and a movie where Clint masterfully changes genres perhaps more stylishly, more accurately and faster than he could shoot his Colt as a young man. And it doesn’t stoop to emotional blackmail, despite the subject matter crying out for it. This is the sort of movie where you need to take an oxygen canister to. Just in case it knocks the breath out of you. And that could easily happen. But what I would change is my very vague awareness of the story. On the other hand, if I had gone to see it in complete ignorance, I don’t think even the oxygen would have saved me.
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There are simply too many thoughts and intentions for one film. A missing child, police corruption and inconsistency, a Ken Kesey-like mental hospital drama, a trial to justify a scapegoat and punish a murdering monster... Only Eastwood can indulge in that, and he doesn't fall short at any point, but the excessive runtime and uneven pacing are proof that more intimate and purely genre stories in the style of A Perfect World or Gran Torino suit him better as a storyteller. The script in itself isn't bad, but it lacks credibility in some of its individual parts, whether in the half-hearted depiction of an evil and irrational police or medical staff, or in the circumstances surrounding the child murders, which lack virtually any motive or explanation. Nevertheless, this is an excellent film, emotionally colourful, visually authentic and psychologically mature, with a sweetly depressing piano soundtrack and a wonderful Angelina Jolie, who traded the face of a tough action heroine for the tortured expression of a betrayed yet hard-fighting mother – a shame for the guys, a stroke of luck for the film... 80%
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A solid Straczynski drama with decent production design, and interesting direction, but also a strange performance by Angelina and a few hobbling a-historical issues. In summary, however, I can recommend Changeling, and perhaps thanks to it younger people will understand who Tom Mix and Claudette Colbert were.
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