Changeling: A Comment.

Rating: 4/10 (31 January 2009)

Almost everything within the film is calculated to hit extra hard at our emotional chords, to tug our heartstrings in support of the heroine, fill us with rage and disgust at the sight of the actions of the powerful leaders in the story, and, of course, jerk the tears from eyes. Eastwood's more recent films in particular are known to contain some sentimentality but, until now, he's refrained from hitting us over the head with the overexuberant brand of saccharin, meritless emotion found in many other films based on real-life accounts of peril and injustice. Yet, that is a particular test "Changeling" does not quite pass, though it is still far above some of the biggest and worst weepies in the room ("Tsotsi," anyone? Or, perhaps you would prefer shedding tears to "Central Station"?).
Part of the problem is the way the central character is portrayed, not entirely due to Jolie's work, but also to the fact that she, and as such her character, comes across as rather too glamorous for the predicaments she finds herself in. Even during the most trying scenes, such as searching frantically for her missing son, dealing with a police department that is, at best, apathetic and, at worst, one of the chief causes of grief Christine Collins (Jolie) and the audience are made to suffer, she seems oddly beautiful in a way that leaves a disconnect, to the detriment of any realism the movie may have otherwise had, with the drama that unfolds.
As was the case in last year's "A Mighty Heart," in which the actress delivers another impassioned performance as a woman who is, in many ways, in a similar situationtragically wronged by circumstances and people beyond her controlit is often difficult to see past her movie-star glitter to get to the raw agony at the core of her character. A large part of this has to do with how the film visually presents her. Her hair and makeup are just right enough to flatter her, even during her most trying times within a grim psychiatric ward, many of the patients of which arrived unwillingly mainly because they were an inconvenience to the police and others in power. She is always filmed by the director of photography, Tom Stern, to look beautiful, almost saintly. That's not a criticism of his work in the film generally; it appropriately renders a vivid interpretation of a 1920s Los Angeles reminiscent of old Hollywood pictures. However, it does distract from Jolie.
Despite the objections, the film is by no means ruined by the glamour and the oversentimentality. Rather, these are mainly a distraction from what is otherwise a compelling and memorable story, written by J. Michael Straczynski, otherwise told relatively well. The basic story is perhaps the best thing about the film, more likely than not because it it presents an inherently compelling situation. The way scenes are intricately intercut (by editors Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach) so as to play off each other is an old tool of storytelling that is used to good effect here, though more for dramatic effect than as an essential method of conveying the plot. Overall, the film could have been more efficient, with a few minutes being trimmed from the film, most obviously the aforementioned Oscar scene. Also, some sequences do feel repetitious in plot and especially in the emotions evoked.
In the end, while "Changeling" is an engrossing story, its distractions interfere with the film, rendering it far from perfect, and, ultimately, minor Eastwood.