Quite good, if disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2008)

After a warm reception at Cannes, the US critics were not nearly as kind to Clint Eastwood's 2008 effort "Changeling". One of the most commonly used phrases in attacking the film was 'Oscar bait'. There have to be few dumber labels used by critics than that. I think it does apply to a few movies here and there, but it has become so commonly used for anything which might appeal to the Academy voters, and Eastwood's classicist tendencies happen to fall into that category. That plus the fact that the Academy seems to love Eastwood's recent output made "Changeling" the target of countless accusations of Oscar baiting. It's disappointing, and indicative of a genuine lack of quality in American film criticism.
If you go into "Changeling" expecting a fairly long, nearly completely black-and-white dramatization of real events, I can't imagine why you would be very disappointed. The script by J. Michael Straczynski, the man behind the great "Babylon 5", displays his talent for writing great dialogue (albeit rarely very realistic dialogue) and his extraordinary storytelling ability. The film's first half hour is the least interesting, I thought, but almost everything after that was quite enthralling and entertaining, and really all you should know going in is that Christine Collins' (played by Jolie) child goes missing, then the LAPD returns another child to her which isn't her actual son. On the side of good we have the aforementioned Inspector Ybarra, Collins herself, a reverend devoted to fighting corruption (played by John Malkovich), and on the side of bad we have the police chief Davis and the main bad guy (for the majority of the film anyhow) Capt. Jones, played superbly by Jeffrey Donovan in one of his first major film roles.
"Changeling" is very clearly a dramatization. There's plenty of melodrama and the script feels convoluted at times (although Straczynski's storytelling ability had me going along with everything, rarely giving me time to dwell on stuff which annoyed me. Much of the film takes on a feminist feel, something which I hadn't really expected. I really ended up liking this sprawling and admittedly flawed script quite a bit, especially when it focused on Inspector Ybarra and his findings (which I won't discuss in detail). Where I disagreed with many critics and audience members is Jolie's performance. It's occasionally just right, but a lot of the time ends up being hysterically over-emotive or, as I suspected, infected with the typical air of smugness Jolie exudes. If anything's Oscar bait here it's Jolie.
Aside from the very good script and generally excellent performances, Tom Stern's photography and Eastwood's direction and music are absolutely superb, along with basically all other technical aspects, particularly the phenomenal design. The film is always great to look at, but there's one or two scenes where it's just beautiful.
"Changeling" is the sort of good vs. bad story we don't get often, and when we do get one it's often poor and ridiculously contrived. There may be contrivances here, some of it might be over-written, and Jolie may have grated on me occasionally, but the film is ultimately worth seeing.