Between Detail and Detail

Rating: 7/10 (10 November 2008)

The production design and Angelina Jolie's performance dominate this lengthy but rushed tale by director Clint Eastwood. Los Angeles 1928 is truly stunning. We walk the streets of a Los Angeles we've never seen but it looks and feels eerily real. The magic of CGI used to its best advantage. Then, Angelina Jolie, giving a mature and powerful performance as the victim of a disturbed mind and a corrupt police force. Then, the rest, doesn't seem well thought at all. Doesn't Angeline have a photograph of her son to show everybody that the child delivered by the police is not her son? The children, all of them, look and sound like performers of an elementary school theatrical production. Why I wonder? When the period details in the movie are so accurate, why the heaviest of details, the credibility of the supporting performances, are so weak. The writing doesn't help. The baddies are totally bad and the goodies are totally good. Jeffrey Donovan's corrupt cop is really unforgivable. So on the nose without nuances of any kind. Terrible really and very, very annoying. "Changeling" however survives its movie of the week heart, thanks to a truthful and compelling Angelina Jolie. I'm repeating myself I know but so does the film.