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| One well-designed if not exactly striking poster for Clint Eastwood's The Changeling |
The Changeling is master director/actor Clint Eastwood's (Mystic River (2003)) first film that he directed, which came out in 2008; the second one, Gran Torino (2008) beats Changeling by miles.
The film is based on an incredible true story of a single mother in Los Angeles in 1928, who lost her 9 year-old son while at work one day and had to go through years of terrible trials to find out what had happened to him.
Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted (1999)), who was Oscar-nominated for her performance, plays the mother, and she is often quite good, although not sublime. I am decidedly not a Jolie fan; not that I have anything particularly against her, but her films just so rarely excite me in any way.
Her co-star is John Malkovich, who overacts in at least one instance and seems overly angry, to the point where you almost fear that he will bite other character's heads off.
The story develops dramatically around its middle, when SPOILER the serial killer of children, who was responsible for the disappearance and murder of the boy, enters the story, and if Changeling wasn't based on a true story and told soberly stylistically and dramatically, most would have mentally left the film at this point.
Instead, some of us then just have to see, what happened to little Walter.
Changeling has very nice costumes by Deborah Hopper (Flags of Our Fathers (2006)) and presents reproductions of late 1920's and 30's Los Angeles, which is a pleasure to behold for anyone with an interest in the city of angels.
But over-all I must say that I didn't enjoy the film. Plot-wise, things go haywire around 10 minutes into Changeling when the boy goes missing, and it pretty much just gets worse from then on, with very slight tendencies in the other direction, for SPOILER its entire 141 minute playtime. It is a very oppressive and unpleasant story. - Corruption, terrible abuse of power, mental illness, missing children and a mass murder of children needs a very special film in order to feel tolerable, and I was sighing my way through Changeling, unfortunately not finding this to be the case here.
The details:
There are some key scenes that just don't work: I am thinking in particular of two scenes with two different boys, who have important roles for the investigation into the missing boys' cases:
This still is from the first one, in which the boy in the picture confesses SPOILER that he was co-responsible for the murders of as many as 20 boys. This may very well be historically accurate, but the boy didn't make me believe it was, and maybe it was simply too difficult a scene to make stick. It certainly is an extreme confession from such a young individual to recreate.
Later, another interrogation of a boy who got away also goes awry emotionally, as the boy plays the scene in a near-catatonic state.
Changeling has other good things in it, though: Amy Ryan (The Office (2008-11)) is nice as a wrongly imprisoned prostitute, and Jason Butler Harner (Kill the Irishman (2011)) makes an impressive and credible portrait of the repugnant mass-murderer. The film also bolsters one of the all-time greatest SPOILER execution scenes, as Harner's killer is hanged in San Quentin.
Still, Changeling ranks among Eastwood's lesser films in my opinion. Similarly, I never cared much for his other big, but much more successful female hero drama, Million Dollar Baby (2004). Perhaps Eastwood's talent simply lies mostly with male characters.
- His next film will be such a one, American Sniper (2014) is coming soon.
Related reviews:
Clint Eastwood: Tightrope (1984) - An undervalued Clint Eastwood sex killer thriller (actor)
Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business! (actor)
The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller (actor)
Coogan's Bluff (1968) or, Dopes and Hippies, Beat It! (actor)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho (actor)
Watch the original trailer here
Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 113 mil. $
= Minor flop
[The Changeling premiered to a warm reception in Cannes and was met with a more lukewarm embrace at home in the US, where it earned 35.7 mil. $ of its over-all take. Its general critical reception is a bit more positive than Film Excess's; it holds a 6.3 rating on Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Changeling?
Do you agree that Clint Eastwood is best with stories about male protagonists?
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