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)
Clint truly has the golden touch. A brilliant drama that, even with its length, is over before you know it. Angelina acts like her life depended on it, and I think that together with Fox from Wanted, it's the best role of her entire career. Paradoxically, some of the strongest scenes are the ones without her. The events on the farm, both the digging scene and the memories of the other boy, were incredibly chilling.
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Clint Eastwood and the most firmly held formula. A story that could be retold in three sentences stretches over two hours, but with such fascinating talent it forces the viewer to immensely enjoy that time. Every emotion feels genuine, Angelina Jolie overcomes her acting limitations, and the period atmosphere attacks all of my senses. If the whole film hadn't been infused with a very credible, unpleasant, and unrelenting hint of inhumanity, it could have been even better.
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Clint Eastwood with fragile piano music is the Danielle Steel of serious topics. But for topics as serious as those addressed in Changeling, and especially for tying them together in some meaningful way, a big heart alone is not enough.
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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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