There Will Be Hope

Rating: Null/10 (12 March 2009)

CHANGELING 9.5/10
Almost a year after Clint Eastwood's Changeling premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival I finally saw it and I saw it exactly on 11 March 2009, I saw it one day after another anniversary (the number 81) of the disappearing of Christine Collins' son Walter Collins, certainly it took place on 10 March 1928. As you know Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins (for me her very best performance so far) and the story begins on 9 March 1928, everything is normal, Christine and her young son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) are going to see a movie next day, maybe the new Charles Chaplin movie but for something the plan can't go on, Christine has go out and then happens, a tragedy and is just the beginning.
There will be justice, hope but for once we have nothing but a damn perfect time for all of those corrupts. Let's see, woman's son disappears, some months after if you have the chance why not bring an abandoned child who says his name is Walter Collins and say that finally Christine will meet again with her son but how act when Christine will say that his son is still missing, well is kind of easy, say that after months a child certainly changes and stuff. So now this case is over, you must act like just the f****** bastard you are and every time Christine argues that the boy you brought is not Walter well just say to her stuff like "so you were just fine alone, you liked it and now that your son is back you don't like it anymore, now you just don't want responsibilities".
So meanwhile people think that Christine is finally again with her son she will go with people that knew Walter, there's no doubt but certainly the kid that the police brought as Walter calls her mom, the corrupts thought that for Christine would be enough that any kid call her mother to forget about her son? Of course not but they certainly will have all under control so Christine can come and denounce that the police made a mistake and that they should be trying to find her son and stuff but the irresponsible mother will be her, the one who will go direct to the psychopathic ward. And inside the hospital we have a typical part, typical in the way that Christine must admit that she was wrong and that the boy the police brought is her son otherwise she will basically die there. And is all pretty well clear and all the women that are there because of a problem in which a police officer was the guilty know what will happen if they fight and of course Christine will fight.
On the other hand there's this case that certainly has nothing related with the case of Christine's missing son, a simple case of a Canadian boy who has to be deported. So we meet another young boy of the four in the film and again when this Canadian boy talks he certainly don't know if what he is saying will be relevant in the case of Walter Collins however it will be and it will bring some justice, some satisfying moments. Certainly this film is a difficult one in the way that it begins and we have a missing child, certainly the pain of the mother only to meet those corrupts and to see how Christine's life is in danger. But certainly what the Canadian boy says is just as hopeless as horrible, as unbelievable as real.
The film's last part is full of justice with answers yet for Christine is not time to stop thinking that his son is still alive somewhere, certainly for some moments we and the people near Christine, John Malkovich's character Rev. Gustav A. Briegleb, wish resignation. Certainly there are not enough proves to confirm that Walter Collins was one of the many children that were brutally murdered by Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) and his nephew Sanford Clark (Eddie Alderson), the Canadian boy, but is just very difficult to think that Walter was not one of those children. The killer Gordon Northcott says to Christine that he didn't murdered Walter and at one point near, the day in which Gordon will be hung from neck until dead, Gordon requests that Christine travels to see him since he will say the truth about what happened with Walter, certainly whatever is the confession of Gordon will bring some peace to Christine yet this won't happen until years after Gordon's execution when we meet the last of the four young boys in the film, there will be hope.
A magnificent cast (not only Jolie but Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan as one of the corrupt bastards, Harner and Michael Kelly, as a fine police detective, are simply fantastic), long but never boring or uninteresting, Changeling is a true piece of work and is together with Mystic River (first place) and Letters from Iwo Jima my favourite Clint Eastwood film from this decade yet I have still to see Flags of Our Fathers and Gran Torino (that will be released in my city on 27 March 2009).