The Changeling (Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore) – There aren’t many movies where your lasting memory is the outstanding set design and costuming. Along with its wonderful lead actress, that’s exactly how I left Clint Eastwood’s period piece, The Changeling. Featuring Eastwood’s own score, the film has Clint’s unique touch. It also has another Eastwood signature, an actress who gives an award-buzzing performance. This time, it’s Angelina Jolie, who finds the time from child-raising and charity work to give another powerful performance reminiscent of A Mighty Heart. She plays Christine Collins, a working single mother in the 1920s, who lives for her son while supervising at the local phone company. Called into work when a co-worker gets sick, she leaves her sweet but responsible son, Walter, alone to be checked by neighbors. When she returns home, Walter is gone and the story begins.
The L.A. Police Department, reputed for their corruption, graft and trigger-happy ways, searches for five months before producing a nine-year-old found in DeKalb, Illinois. The problem is that the kid is not her son, as she insists over and over again. (Side note: The only bad thing about this film is how many times she screamed “HE IS NOT MY SON!” I wanted to strangle someone because, YES, I GOT IT!) But the kid insists he’s Walter Collins and the police, eager to solve the case and garner some positive press for once, embrace the notion. But Collins is relentless. Well, at first, she’s respectful; then, she turns insistent; and finally, she becomes belligerent. Anxious to shut her up, the captain of the Juvenile Division, played by unknown Jeffrey Donovan (TV’s Burn Notice and Touching Evil) with a sometimes-inconsistent Irish accent, sends her to the mental ward of the county hospital either to pressure her to admit that she’s wrong or to shut her down. Fortunately for her, she has an ally in her cause. He’s Rev. Gustav Briegleb, a local Presbyterian minister and radio preacher, who has dedicated his ministry to exposing the corruption in the LAPD. Played as subtly as John Malkovich is capable, the minister enlists the help of the most celebrated lawyer in L.A. The rest of the movie is Collins’ fight for justice, the investigation into her child’s disappearance, and the search for Walter.
The movie has a similar feel to Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby with a touch of his Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But above all, this is Jolie’s vehicle. While she spends much of the movie with crying, swelled, puffy, makeup-running eyes, she also shows the strength of an independent woman and mother shortly after women were finally given the vote. This is an Oscar contender, of course, but it might fall short of being a great, great movie because it lacked some needed tension late in the film. But the Academy loves Clint, who also will be starring in the movie, Gran Torino, coming out in December. Could he be double nominated for two different movies this year?