Just perfect...

From my favorite movies..

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Bolstered by a strong, heartfelt & compelling performance from Angelina Jolie, Changeling is a competently crafted & sincerely narrated feature that brings its real life story to cinematic life in a calm, composed & captivating manner and is another quality addition to Clint Eastwood's directorial oeuvre.Set in Los Angeles during the late 1920s, the story of Changeling follows a single mother whose son goes missing one day. The ensuing investigation ends with the police finding a boy who fits the description. But when she complains that the kid they found isn't her son, the cops dismiss her as a liar & try to silence her.Directed by Clint Eastwood (best known for Unforgiven & Million Dollar Baby), the film follows a conventional path and hits a few rough patches in between but the interest in the case & the mystery surrounding the fate of the missing kid is never lost. Eastwood directs the story with patience & comfort, and recreates the period setting in fine detail.The script is smartly structured, letting out only required details at a time, which keeps the drama in motion. Camerawork is controlled for the most part. Editing is a bit on the slow side and the story could have used a better pace. Eastwood also provides the background score that silently accompanies the plot and rarely tries to make its presence felt.But it's Angelina Jolie's powerful, heartbreaking & emotionally resonant rendition of a grief-stricken mother that steers this story past the finish line, for it is one of her finest acts and is also a departure from her typical roles. The supporting cast also chip in with good inputs, especially John Malkovich & Jeffrey Donovan, but it is Jolie's show all the way.On an overall scale, Changeling explores the themes of female disempowerment & political corruption with frankness and benefits a lot from the satisfying work that its faithful cast puts in. There was room for improvement no doubt but the end result is still an interesting cinema that delivers the goods under Eastwood's assured direction & Jolie's commanding performance. Definitely worth a shot.

This movie is based on a true story that occurred in L.A. in March of 1928. Christine Collins is a single mother of a young boy, Walter (Gattlin Griffith). Christen works as the supervisor of a large group of telephone operators while Walter attends school. One Saturday, when she had promised to take Walter to see a Charlie Chaplin movie, she is called into work to fill in for another sick employee. When she returns from work, Walter is no where to be found. She immediately calls the police, knowing that Walter is reliable and would call her if he had a reason not to be home. The police take her call but reject doing anything immediately: Walter had not been missing for more than 24 hours. After her request is made official, days (then weeks) go by as Walter remains missing.The media is informed and Christine's search for Walter becomes a famous case as newspapers and radio reporters won't let up on the police department's failure to find Walter. A local minister, Rev Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who broadcasts on the radio and has some public clout, seems to be particularly interested in the 'widespread corruption of the LAPD.' He uses their lack of action in this case to further attack the LAPD. Weeks after Walter's disappearance, Christine receives news from the LAPD that Walter had been found with a drifter in Illinois and that he would be returning home safe and sound. When Christine goes to meet him at the train station, the boy who meets her is not Walter (even though he claims to be). After police Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) has the newspaper take a picture of Christine and her "son," he insists that she take him home in spite of her certainty that he is NOT Walter. Jones suggests that Walter's appearance may have changed and that Christine might be in a state of shock. When she continues to insist that the strange boy in her house is not Walter Dr. Earl W. Tarr (Peter Gerety), who regularly works with the police, tries to convince her that the new boy's shorter height and the fact that he is circumcised (Walter wasn't) all could be explained logically. As she continues to speak out, the police have her committed to an asylum.She is released when a young illegal immigrant, 14-year-old Sanford Clark (Eddie Alderson) is discovered at a nearby ranch. He is arrested for deportation back to Canada. But before deportation, Clark reveals that he was involved in a bizarre series murders (about twenty other boys). The alleged murderer is Clark's uncle, Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Hamer). (For more about the actual events, see 'Wineville Chicken Coop Murders' on Wikipeia.) Could Walter have been one of those murdered..or was he one of the two that got away..or was he still missing in another location? These are the issues that continue to be unfolded as the movie plays out.

Clint Eastwood has produced some brilliant work as a director. Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby come to mind.But, as with Flags of Our Fathers, he here demonstrates a penchant for going over the top.There were times I felt like I was watching a dystopian commentary on systemic corruption at the hands of the new world order rather than a period piece revolving around a humanly dramatic mystery.Much of the acting is equally excessive as Clint lingers to jab a knife into our hearts in a way that is meant to be grueling but is surprisingly shallow.Such are the consequences of the risks inherent in going deep with dramatic material. The effort is compelling even if the result is lacking in grace.Part of the problem is the complexity of the material, which seems to drift between two different story lines, both of which are given equal weight even though they are barely related, as if one is meant to throw us off the trail of the other - which results in cheaply woven mystery and a plot that loses its way.

Let's see if I got this down correctly, it's Los Angeles in 1928, a young boy raised in a single working mother household disappears while he's left at home unattended. Months later, the police desperate to keep their decaying reputation intact because their so corrupt, lazily claims that they found her child. When she confronts them and tells them that's not her child, the lazy asses say she's making thing up. When she refuses to dismiss the case, the cops end up locking her away in an asylum. While this is happening, some graphic details involving another child abduction case catches their attention feeling that the misfired details to the story is more macabre than the one's been uncovered. Why would anyone want to see this exhibition of manipulative cheapness? All it delivers here is just showcasing children's lives being threatened. In a nutshell, all that this movie stems down to is fear-mongering and the audience is just simply biting into it. From what I gathered this story was based on actual events and yes I admit it's sad that these cases do happen. However, at the same time, the movie is so one-sided it's preposterous. Aside from that the events following the case lack in anything uplifting, energetic or eye-opening or any other terminology words that the Oscar hacks like to utilize. This movie fails miserably that can't be repaired. Angelina Jolie stars as single-mother Christine Collins. She works as a telephone operator and is one of the best workers on the staff. When she gets called into work one fine Saturday she leaves her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) at home by himself. When she returns home, the boy has vanished. Five months has passed, she gets the news that the cops have found a boy located in Illinois that suitably matches Walter's description. When she arrives that the station, she is surrounded by reporters and police who are just trying to conceal their corrupt reputation as they reveal the boy to her. When she sees the boy, she confirms that this child is not Walter. But the cops knowing they goofed still want Christine to take the child anyways. She then tries to take the case even further with the chief of police Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) that even though the proof that the boy they found was not Walter, he declares that Christine has serious mental disorders. And when she refuses to dismiss the case, the LAPD have her institutionalized to an asylum. While there she's befriended by fellow inmate named Carol Dexter (Amy Ryan) who instructs her on getting by in the loony bin. Meanwhile on her side, a local Reverend Gustav Brieglab (John Malkovich) who opposes corruption stands up to defends Christine's case while the token good cop Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) makes a grisly discovery involving a tip about a missing child who was abducted by crooked Canadian criminal. This movie clearly is every mother's worst nightmare. When we go to the cinemas, we want to be entertained and thrilled and to chase our troubles and insecurities away. So why do we need to watch a movie where real events like this one could happen to anyone at any time? What makes matters worse is that it is so surreal to actually think the cops even back then would be so corrupt and uncaring it makes this true story feel as though the production never once took this subject matter very seriously. It just never felt convincing. Sure director Clint Eastwood's intentions were good and Jolie did quite well in her respected role and had the emotions accurate in how any mother would react when faced in this dire situation. But the film quite insufferable and very painful to watch. When the final credits roll, there was no justice that truly prevailed. No feel-good moments were delivered here and it took a ton of excruciating frustrations for common sense to get through. And then some important details that could've been utilized to good effect were thrown out the window. Like why didn't they question the neighbours who were checking up upon Walter? That could've been a potential lead, but it was neglected because common sense was nowhere to be found. After all is said and done, "Changeling" is two hours and twenty minutes of torturous manipulation that took a serious story and made very little progression to make this story enthralling.