DVD Review of Changeling
Clint Eastwood Directs Angelina Jolie in Her Search for Her Son
Written by J. Michael Straczynski and directed by Clint Eastwood, Changeling is the 1928 true story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a floor manager at the PacTel switchboard, and her beloved nine-year-old son Walter (Gattlin Griffith). After picking up an extra shift one day, Christine returns home to find Walter missing. She scours the neighborhood and questions everyone, but her search is fruitless. Contacting the police, she learns that they can’t or won’t do anything until the child has been missing for at least 24 hours.
Five agonizing months later, Capt. J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) of the LAPD makes headlines by reportedly finding a child (Devon Conti) abandoned by a drifter in DeKalb, Illinois—a boy who fits the description and claims to be Walter Collins. When reunited at the train station, however, Christine doesn’t recognize the child and plainly states, “This is not my son.” A member of a corrupt, trigger-happy police force, Jones realizes how badly his team needs this win, so he strongly urges her to reconsider, pointing out that such a stressful ordeal can change a child. And out of desperation, shock, and confusion, she does.
The arrangement is only temporary, though, as evidence begins to mount that refutes Jones’ assertion. This “other” boy, for example, is circumcised and three inches shorter than Walter, not to mention his dental dissimilarities and inability to remember key facts. Still, Jones clings to his story and refuses to resume the search for the “real” Walter, and in an attempt to avoid any further embarrassment, he begins to discredit Christine as a mother. He even goes so far as to have her institutionalized for what he deems to be mental instability. But with the help of Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), a longtime vocal critic of the police, and a high-powered attorney, she is quickly released and files suit against the LAPD.
Meanwhile, Detective Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) uncovers something rather disturbing at an isolated chicken ranch outside Winesville, California: the remains of little boys. A serial killer named Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) apparently had a penchant for abducting and murdering children. With the death toll allegedly at twenty, he is apprehended and sentenced to death. The burning question looms, though: was Walter one of his victims?
Critique
Eastwood beautifully recreates 1920s-era Los Angeles, and for the most part, the acting in Changeling matches his effort. Jolie’s Academy Award-nominated performance is stunning at times and underwhelming at others. She breaks hearts in one crucial scene yet over-emotes in another, but for most of the movie, she’s content to remain somewhat muted beneath her cloche. Ironically, Harner steals every scene in which he appears; with his boyish, smarmy charm, it’s a joy to watch him snivel and squirm as his conflicted mind unravels.
In serial killer roles, it would seem very tempting to go the over-the-top, Manson-versus-Geraldo route—think Ed Harris in Just Cause or Sam Rockwell in The Green Mile— but it requires just as much talent to do the understated psychopath. And this is what Harner accomplishes. Even for the crazy, less is more.
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