Changeling
5 Stars
What just happened?
3 Stars
It is rare to come across a movie which is as beautifully directed, powerfully acted and utterly moving as Clint Eastwood’s Changeling. Not simply another Hollywood blockbuster, it is a breath of fresh air at the cinema.
Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski masterfully adapts this true-crime story, bringing to life the shocking events which occurred in Los Angeles in 1928 when Walter, the nine-year-old son of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a switch-board operator, goes missing. The LAPD are less than helpful. However after five months they bring Christine, along with the press, to the train station to be reunited with a boy who they claim to be her son.
One problem: this boy is not Walter. Yet instead of the police admitting their mistake, they persuade Christine to take the child home on a ‘trial basis’. Obviously experiencing emotional imbalance at such a time, she must simply be mistaken. Why would the boy call her ‘mother’ if she was anyone else? Sure he may have shrunk two inches and be a little more circumcised than she remembers, but all these changes are perfectly viable, the LAPD doctor assures; he has been missing for five months.
The audience chuckle with incredulity at the ‘professional’ assertions of the doctor, yet any laughter has a somewhat bitter aftertaste when aligned with Jolie’s entirely convincing and heart-rending portrayal of Christine’s helplessness. We watch as she transforms her terror into a relentless personal crusade, exposing the corruption of those in power. The star-studded cast give consistently excellent performances, especially Jolie, whose skill as an actress is really given credit in this non-action-movie role. Apart from one disappointingly cheesy ending line, it is no wonder that Changeling has been nominated for the Golden Palm award for best movie of the year.
What Just Happened? isn’t a spectacularly good film, but neither is it jaw-droppingly bad. It’s an example of the “Hollywood films that satirise Hollywood” genre, ranking above Burn Hollywood Burn but below The Player. Watching it is a bit like watching a boozed-up sixth former stumble through a comedy routine about George Bush: you agree in principle with what’s being said, and there may be moments of comic brilliance, but it’s been done before, with more subtlety, panache and originality.
The film has a number of positive points. The cinematographer, Stéphane Fontaine (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) is excellent, and there are some gorgeously shot scenes.
The acting is uniformly very good. Sean Penn and Bruce Willis play themselves. Robert De Niro stars, fresh from the critical drubbing of Righteous Kill. He plays Ben, a producer attempting to mediate between his studio’s desire to make money and his director’s desire to create Great Art.
Michael Wincott’s show-stealing turn here as the perennially drugged film director is worth the price of entry. He shoots a film which concludes with the execution of both the hero and the hero’s loveable dog. There is a close-up shot of a bullet imploding in the dog’s skull and splattering viscera onto the camera, a shot which effectively also kills Ben’s career as a producer. It is a mark of how bleak the humour of the film is that this is possibly its funniest moment.
Best of all, the script largely avoids obvious laughs and cheap gags, going instead for black, observational humour.
For example, as Ben enters the bathroom after the icy reception of his latest film, he encounters a film critic and asks his professional opinion. A squirming silence ensues. “I liked the soundtrack,” the critic eventually manages. It does have a very good soundtrack.
So we hope that you opt for Angelina Jolie’s star turn in Changeling this week if you want to sink your teeth into something that will prove more thought-provoking, and more entertaining.
