Changeling Review

"Changeling", an eloquent and distractingly beautiful film, has almost been sidetracked by the attendant Oscars hoopla even before its release this side of the Atlantic! So intent was the studio in plugging Clint Eastwood's latest, bashing you over the head with the overabundance of talent on screen, that it would have been too easy to allow yourself to be subsumed by it - writing a near perfect film off for trying a bit too hard.

Well, "Changeling" veers away from this scenario effortlessly from the get go. Eastwood infuses his latest opus with an uneasy piano score to underpin the emotionally powerful story that is about to unfold. His film needs no bells or whistles for it to drive home its breathtaking punch line. The performances alone are enough to propel "Changeling" to heights rarely reached by Eastwood as a filmmaker - praise indeed considering the great man's previous work on "Million Dollar Baby" and "Mystic River"! Angelina Jolie, sure to be at the forefront of the Academy's mind come February, plays Christine Collins, a single mother holding down a respectable job in Los Angeles circa 1928. One day she returns home to find her 10-year old son missing. Little does she realise that this is just the start of the nightmare. Five months later the LAPD arrange a tearful reunion between mother and son, not before clueing in the press. Of course, the boy before Christine is not actually her son and she realises this immediately despite the boy's protestations. Despite having her suspicions confirmed by doctors no less, the LAPD remain maddeningly resolute and thus force Christine into a deepening spiral of despair and panic, which sees her admitted, against her will, to a mental asylum.

Eastwood could have easily opted for a "Girl, Interrupted"-style show of psychosis here but J. Michael Straczynski's script (the man who penned TV's "Babylon 5") is of a different calibre. His story, taking inspiration from the Californian "Wineville Chicken Murders", may initially pan out fairly predictably but soon spins outwards to encompass every facet of corruption within the fabric of LA at that time. It's whilst at the asylum that Christine is helped by the Rev. Gustav Briegleb (a never better John Malkovich) who takes on her case and attempts to drive home a stake right to the heart of the LAPD.

"Changeling" confirms what many have known for some time now, Clint Eastwood just keeps getting better and better as a filmmaker. His most visually arresting film to date, and as equally evocative as "Mystic River", "Changeling" is an Awards frontrunner with a sensational central performance from Jolie.