Trout-Fish

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2011)

"Changeling" didn't blow me away like it promised to, instead it gave me an above-satisfactory true life drama which delivered some pleasant cinematography, capable directing and so-so writing.
Why was the writing so-so? Well, I honestly believe that "Changeling" focused too much on giving the audience an historical account rather than an emotional one. We were given a depiction of a woman's life, loves son, loses son, gets a son that isn't hers, protests about it, goes in mental hospital, goes out. With a sub serial killer story that was an added bonus. Instead I think that "Changeling" would've benefited from focusing on the relationship with her son which we didn't get that much of. It's very early on in the film where her son disappears so we don't get that emotional characterisation between Jolie and her son which would've added much more emotion to the story.
Also, their should've been longer of Angelina coping with her loss so that the audience could feel a little more excited when the police assure that they've found her son. Added to this the screenplay would've been stronger if we could see this rock relationship between Angelina and her fake son instead of giving us some historical factual account. Sure you can have her life in the mental hospital and the killer sub-plot but these shouldn't take over the main theme of the film which is love, loss and corruption.
However, what the film did do well was to give some gripping emotional-driven scenes. "Changeling" was engaging but far from perfection. Agelina Jolie's performance was extremely over-rated, I couldn't take her seriously with her massive trout-like lips she must've used at least two lip sticks for one lip! Either that or she used one the size of a barrel. Her silly pudding hat was annoying as well, but as for her performance it was hammy. I lost count the amount of times she said "my son" (which is why I've used that line many times in this review ;).
In the end "Changeling" isn't a bad film, in fact it's a very good film but it could've been improved upon, say if Lars Von Trier directed and Helena Bonham Carter replaced Angelina Jolie and Darren Aronofsky wrote it but hey. You can't have everything.