Son if a Jolie

Rating: 9/10 (20 November 2008)

Changeling- ***1/2 out of **** By Kevin Muller With all the press lately about Angelina Jolie being "Uncool" people may have forgotten she is a movie star with a new movie out. With this film, Jolie reminds us why she is one of Hollywood's greatest talents. Seriously, if Jolie isn't nominated for an Oscar come February, it is a crime. In "Changeling" she dives so far into her character and displays every emotion with such ease that it will make you glad you spent money on a ticket to this fantastic film.
Clint Eastwood, who directed this picture, really explores the dark side of human emotions in this picture. Anyone who has seem "Mystic River", "Million Dollar Baby" or "Unforgiven" knows that Mr. Eastwood can easily tell a story about the ugliness of human nature. With "Changeling", he goes a step further and really makes us feel uncomfortable because this time the victims aren't a bunch of cowboys, a teen girl or a adult female boxer, but little children.
For those of you who don't know, the movie is inspired by true events that took place in 1930's Los Angles, when the cops ran things their way with no questions. Jolie plays Christine Collins, a mild mannered telephone operator, who is raising her son Walter. One day she she arrives home to find her son missing. Like any other mother, she starts to search for her son with the help of the police. Three months later, the police say they have found her son and hand over a boy who doesn't resemble her son at all. Christine keep insisting that the boy isn't her son, but the police keep making up excuses to cover their own tracks; even going so far as saying that the obvious case of her son's shrinking height is due to some connection to distress that he probably went through while captured. I won't give away any more of the plot, but things do get ugly and the only one on Christine's side is a local preacher Gustav Briegleb (John Malcovich) who has a extremem distaste for the LAPD.
The movie is quite long, running almost two and half hours, but it is worth it because Eastwood is a master story teller, who doesn't let everything unravel all at once. The time period is perfectly mimicked as are the costumes. What Eastwood and screen writer J . Michael Straczynski accomplish is making a picture that is both filled with both hope and hopelessness. You feel Christine's highs and lows because the movie takes its time connecting you to her. There is a scene where Jolie comes face to face with the suspected killer, pleading him to tell the where abouts of the son, which is so powerful that you just are taken a back how amazing Jolie is in this scene. She throws him around like a doll, slaps him, bullies him and you feel every emotion she is throwing at this man.
"Changeling" is definitely an adult picture, with moments being almost as dark as 1995's "Se7en." Most of all, and I can't stress this enough, it is a emotions picture about the undying love and drive of a woman who has lost her son, acted out beautifully by a beautiful and talented actress.