Clint Eastwood is here to unveil his yearly "mega-depth" film that will no doubt garner lots of attention based on its strong showing at Cannes. In his latter years he has gone from movie tough guy to noted auteur, at least to some degree. While I've enjoyed some of his recent films, I've also found others to be grandly overrated. "
Million Dollar Baby" immediately pops to mind as an example of this.
This year's attempt to snag Oscars is "Changeling", which is based upon an event that transpired from 1928-1930 in Los Angeles. It was called the "Wineville Chicken Coop Murders" and was a tale of kidnapping and murder that became a national sensation that eventually led to changes in the way police conducted their business.
Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) was a single mother who was a telephone operator supervisor that one day returned home from work to an empty house. Her nine-year-old son was nowhere to be found, a very unusual circumstance for this child who tended to not wander away from home. Naturally, she was frantic to find him, but after exhausting all of the local possibilities, she contacts the police and they are not all that interested. They tell her to calm down and that he will no doubt be home soon. In reality they are correct, usually, but not this time. Eventually the hunt for little Walter is underway.
Five months later, the police find Walter in the Midwest and he is brought by train to be reunited with his mother. The Chief of Police and his entourage and a large group of reporters, invited by the police to showcase their success, are also in attendance. One problem. The child who steps off the train is not Walter. Even though mom knows this, she is assured that the time away and stress has left her confused. Watching this scene unfold seems more than a tad unbelievable. For some reason she very reluctantly plays along. The police clearly know that this child is not hers but they are determined to portray the situation this way in order to look like they have found a missing child. It is very hard to fathom things playing out in such a ridiculous manner. It is also impossible to determine if this is an inaccurate portrayal or a stunning difference in the times in which this occurred. In either case, I found that it took me out of the film, never a good thing.
Naturally, she continues to try and find her son and a popular Reverend of the day, Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), a noted critic of police corruption, comes to her aid. The lengths that the police go to in order to not be exposed is pretty crazy but I will have to believe accurate in its depiction. She is even tossed in the loony bin, at a police lieutenant's direction. Eventually the wheels of justice get a little bit of grease and the truth is gradually revealed for all to see.
"Changeling" left me oddly cold. I didn't care much about what had happened to the Collins boy. I was a little curious, but nothing more than that. Jolie does an okay job, hitting all of the right marks of sorrow, fear, indignation, pride and fortitude. The problem is that you can almost see those words flashing below her as she demonstrates them. Malkovich is similarly okay. It's not his best work. Most of the rest of the cast are clearly acting. We're not supposed to be thinking that while we watch them.
The whole production felt forced to me and seemed like nothing more than a fair television film. For a while it even played like a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" rip-off, where the inmates were being tortured by sadistic doctors and nurses. I realize that this is an important story that should be told but I just wish it had been told in a way that didn't seem so artificial. I suppose it may yield some high praise and awards but in my opinion it is deserving of nothing more than a yawn.
