Vastly overrated treatment of an amazing story

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2008)

I liked this movie less and less the longer it went on. Eastwood is an interesting director but his biggest fault lies in his inability to see the woods for the trees. Like the latter-day Spielberg, he just can't bear to end the movie or at least cut out scenes which stretch the patience. There are long, tedious swathes of this movie (the hearings at the end, the trial of the killer) which could have been drastically edited or (in the case of the outcome of the hearings) cut completely and dealt with in text at the end of the movie or in a far more succinct denouement.
Conversely, there are parts of the story dealt with so briefly that they are simply confusing. The reason why a small boy would pretend to be a missing child, how he got the idea and who encouraged him are inadequately provided, and the solitary scene of the boy being left as collateral in a diner is scant compensation.
It's a testament to the slightly unfocused film that I felt it necessary to read more about the real case online when I got home, just to fill in the gaps. In my e-travels I found an interview with the screenwriter who says he didn't want to glorify the heinous crimes which formed part of the story, but wanted to focus on the personal tale of Christine Collins and her disappeared son. That's all very well, but it was only really in the scenes involving the crimes that the film really felt alive and driven, instead of melodramatic and pedantic. If I had to see Angelina Jolie slap her heart and shout 'I want MY son!' one more time, I'd had have wanted a refund. Or earplugs.
Jolie has had loads of plaudits for her role and she was good - but I found her lips so distracting that I can hardly judge. Against a muted 'period' palette, her scarlet protuberances - often in the act of grief-induced quivering - intrude like two giant red jellies in a pot of porridge.
This is not a bad film - parts of it are very good and some of it is shocking. But someone needs to let Clint Eastwood know the line between drama and melodrama, taking time and tedium, and attention to detail and pedantry.
I would have given it a 6 but I'm giving it a 5 in an effort to drag the ridiculously high score down to a sensible level as quickly as possible.