Mrs. Collins, if that boy's your son I'll eat my yard stick.

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2010)

In late 1920s Los Angeles, single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) returns home from work to find her 9 year old son Walter has gone missing. Several months later she is overjoyed to be told by the LAPD that Walter has been found alive and well. However, when she is reunited with the boy she categorically states that this boy is not her Walter. Persuaded to take the child home by pressure tactics and mind games by department Captain J. J. Jones , Christine becomes ever more clear that the boy is not her son. Refusing to accept what the authorities are telling her, she begins a public crusade to find the real Walter. This however opens up a can of worms that involves corruption and murder.
Based on real life incidents that occurred in in Los Angeles and Riverside County, California, in 1928, Changeling sees Clint Eastwood direct after Ron Howard had to step aside and J. Michael Straczynski adapting the story for the screen. From his first directing assignment in 1971 with Play Misty For Me, Eastwood has grown into one of the finest and most respected directors around. His choice of topics may not be across the board appealing, but, certainly with his work from Unforgiven onwards, he has an easy on the eye style that belies some of the dark material he chooses to work from. Such is the case with Changeling, a magnificent film that asks you for your undivided attention so as to make you angry, upset and even repulsed in equal measure.
Driven by a powerhouse performance from Jolie (is this really the Tomb Raider and Wanted girl?), the film niftily puts under the microscope a number of issues that existed around the time of this two handed story. There's the treatment of women, well, more society's attitude to women at this time, while the LAPD, already pinpointed as a discredited organisation in the 20s, firmly get the barrels aimed straight at them thru the station doors. There's also the ugly spectre of how mental health patients are dealt with, this point in the film signifying a change of mood, it no longer being a film about one mother's quest for the truth. There lies the trump card in the piece, after being fully engaged with Christine's black and blue world (the story is too strong to not be involved with it), it turns to black horror with the arrival of Sanford Clark, and more tellingly, his uncle, one Gordon Northcott (a fabulously twitchy Jason Butler Harner).
The production is top dollar, from the costumes (those wonderful hats) to the rattling streetcars and jalopies, this is rich 20s period detail. While the rest of the cast turn out good work for their relaxed director. John Malkovich is perhaps a little under used considering he is the film's moral backbone, but in true Malkovich fashion he leaves a lasting impression and proves once again what a fine visual actor he is. Geoff Pierson pops in with a potent turn as lawyer S.S. Hahn, while Colm Feore, Jeffrey Donovan and Michael Kelly are the coppers of the piece and they round out what is a well casted motion picture. Nominated for three Academy Awards (winning none), the film made a Worldwide profit of nearly $58 million. That profit doesn't do justice to how good the film is. After enthusiastic reviews from Cannes the piece received mixed reviews on its general release. Some complaints lean towards the film apparently being over melodramatic at times. Not so! This is just real adult drama produced with like minded adult precision. There's a small gripe that it has one too many endings, thus stretching it to being over two hours long, but it's not enough to stop it from being the tight and emotionally involving picture that it is. Keep up the good work Clint, Hollywood needs you now more than ever. 9/10