Does Hope Spring Eternal?

Rating: Null/10 (25 October 2008)

It's been said that hope springs eternal. Yet for many of us, it is an illusion. In vain, we dream for good health, for financial independence, for true love. Seeking escape or inspiration, we turn to movies.
Changeling, the account of a mother searching for her missing nine year old son, presents a paradox. Based upon true events, its outcome is predetermined. So on one hand, unlike an artificial happy ending of a work of fiction, we could be offered an authentic portrayal of hope validated upon reuniting with her boy. On the other hand, we might be faced with the mother finding him dead, or not even knowing his fate. How can she rationally cope? The challenge for the director lies in staging this drama.
Overall, the acting is fine, the cinematography excellent. Notwithstanding the R rating, horrid images are depicted with minimal visual gore which in your mind's eye actually exacerbates the horror. The corrupt cops and the monstrous psych ward staff are overtly hostile to the mother. The pastor initially appears supportive when she aids his political cause against the establishment. But after her service, he tells her it is time to abandon hope for her child. Nevertheless, she valiantly clings on, as do we in empathy.
Tragically, the director, seeming to underscore the pastor, himself forsakes the mother. This otherwise powerful movie is emasculated by its finale. Changeling merely delivers its denouement with a text overlay explaining what happened. Reread that sentence. Let it sink in, and you'll share the emotional vacuum thrust upon the viewer. Whatever escape or inspiration one sought instantly crashes.
I later learned that historical records reveal little about the woman and her son after the calamity. But this is no excuse for leaving us empty. In the film Hollywoodland, despite sketchy facts, the death of George Reeves (the 1950's TV Superman) was rigorously interpreted and portrayed three alternative ways.
Because the narrative begins in 1928, the mother is presumably now deceased. Thoughts and feelings she took to her grave remain undramatized. Hope springs eternal only in theology: in the world of Changeling, hope dies a lonely death.