A mother’s intuition is never wrong

Changeling
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” is a film about faces. In a movie filled with strong performances, its most effective moments come when the actors contemplate their predicaments quietly and allow their facial expressions to do the talking.

It stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a switchboard operator in 1928 Los Angeles who comes home to find her nine-year-old son Walter missing. Five months later, the LAPD claims to have found the boy alive, yet they produce a child who most certainly is not Walter.

Watch in particular how Eastwood employs faces during that scene. He supplies us with a lingering close-up of the young boy as he gets off the train. Is this the same boy from scenes before? If not, they certainly look similar. And watch how creeping uncertainty plays across Jolie’s face—we understand exactly what’s going through her mind.

And later, when Christine tells Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), the man in charge of her case, that the boy he brought back is the wrong one, he has her dismissed to the local sanitarium as a means of wiping the LAPD’s hands clean of the incident. But look at his face as Christine is dragged screaming from his office, as he stands alone by the window: He knows he’s made a mistake.

And notice how Eastwood and his cinematographer Tom Stern almost always cast faces in half-shadow. Not only does it give the film an unshakeable noir feel, but it casts a pall of doubt over every character in the movie: Who can we trust? Are they who they say they are? Are there other, darker ulterior motives at work?

It’s a marvel how seamlessly Jolie, who is one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actresses, fits into the film’s period atmosphere. Much like her criminally unheralded work in last year’s “A Mighty Heart,” Jolie plays a dignified woman, and she holds her composure, even when it contradicts her motherly instincts.

There is also some marvelous supporting work on display here: John Malkovich as a radio preacher determined to uncover police corruption, Jason Butler Harner as the man who may be responsible for Walter’s disappearance, Geoff Pierson as a no-nonsense prosecuting attorney, Amy Ryan as a prostitute who was thrown into the mental hospital because she threatened a cop with legal action after he beat her. It would be a travesty if all of these performances were ignored come Oscar time.

Eastwood is a no-frills filmmaker, and he allows his story to unfold simply. “Changeling” is a dark film, both devastating and maddening—devastating because this particular case ended with grisly discoveries, maddening because corruption and greed overtook the investigation and put a poor, defenseless woman through such travails.

But it is not without hope (it’s actually the last word spoken in the film), and Jolie is so good here that she almost doesn’t need to speak. It’s all in her face.

Grade: A-

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by J. Michael Straczynski. Starring Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore, Michael Kelly, Jason Butler Harner, Geoff Pierson, Denis O’Hare and Amy Ryan. R; 141m.