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October 24, 2008
Review - Changeling
Changeling is an interesting true story. A woman in the late 1920s, a single mother with a low-end (but rising) management job at the phone company, comes home one day after being called unexpectedly into work on an off day and finds that her son is missing. Five months or so later, her son is returned… but it’s not her son. But LAPD is under pressure from the media and after using the return of the son to tout their strength, they can’t afford to acknowledge the mistake (confirmed by inches of height and an uncircumcised penis), so they “Gaslight” the woman.
The question, from the start, has to be, what kind of movie can you make from this material. What is the point?
And frankly, I’m not sure that Clint Eastwood and screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski ever figured it out.
What they got was a 40s programmer… woman in danger… other women in danger… and in a flop of the expected, bad cops and good religious figure.
You could say that Million Dollar Baby was also a 40s programmer… inexperienced underdog and experienced underdog team up and learn how to be alive… with magical all-knowing black sidekick. But for me, the movie overcame its clichés and became a powerful and emotional tale that really worked.
Changeling, not so much.
The first huge problem is that unlike almost any Eastwood film, it is miscast. Eastwood (with the support of his team) is one of the great casters of all time. He takes actors who aren’t obvious for certain roles and gets great and seemingly perfectly-cast performances out of them. Here, he takes Angelina Jolie, whose power as an actor is her emotional muscle, and makes her into a mouse for all but a couple of scenes in the movie. On top of that, I have mixed feelings about trying to use make-up and lighting to tone down her looks, not because it’s not interesting, but because it leaves her as a bland piece of bread floating in the soup for much of the film.
John Malkovich can do little wrong for me, at his best when not using his most famous inflections, but always great. Here, he is reduced to nothing. He doesn’t have speeches that matter. His tone is low-key with bursts of Mackovichian screaming for people to give him what he wants.
And the third lead, Jeffrey Donovan, is nearly destroyed as a movie actor here. There just isn’t anything keeping him from becoming a cardboard part of the set with his realistically human odd-angled but handsome face and very few moments in which he isn’t lying or manipulating, which are not broad enough to be interesting, but are too dishonest to ever establish interest from an audience that connects with the real moments that actors deliver. I don’t blame Donovan for his limitations here… but he doesn’t have the big screen power that another actor might have had to get away with this role.
Also scared in the process is the great Amy Ryan, here reduced to playing a cardboard version of a woman who has already suffered what the future seems to be holding for the Jolie character… but she doesn’t have enough to play to make an impression beyond her fright wig.
Even Jason Butler Harner, who gets the scenery chewing break of a lifetime doesn’t delivery nearly enough to be of more than passing interest.
And the production design, which is excellent, doesn’t work because it feels like it is posing for a picture so much of the time in the movie (not unlike in Flags of Our Fathers when it was back in America).
Of course, in the end, it always comes back to the story. And it just isn’t anything much more than a Lifetime movie worth of story.
Does this character’s fight to get her son back matter to the audience… aside from simple human compassion for someone who has been done wrong?
Does the bad behavior of the 1928 LAPD mean anything in 2008?
Is there anything in this woman’s story that could resonate for someone who is not going through such an extreme situation?
Does the audience even get the dramatic weight of what it as to be a single mother in 1928 or how society saw sexism in that period?
No, no, no, no.
Talented people all around. And I look forward to Gran Torino, Eastwood’s next programmer with higher aspirations. But this one… just a dud. Onward…
Posted by dpoland at October 24, 2008 12:32 PM
Comments
When the trailers started coming out, and seemed to be giving away every aspect and plot twist of the story, I was really hoping that there would be a further plot twist and the kid really _would_ turn out to be her son and she was actually crazy.
Just another idea to stick in the vault, I guess.
Posted by: jeffmcm ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 24, 2008 12:39 PM
The funniest error I've ever seen on MCN: the title "Voynaristic Reviews: High School Musical 3," followed by the opening paragraph: "It's difficult to imagine an American filmmaker more ideally suited to tell this bit of arcana. Clint Eastwood is a storyteller (a quality in short supply of late) that savors the nuances of a yarn."
Posted by: Sam at October 24, 2008 12:40 PM
I just considered whether a spoiler warning was needed after reading your comment, J-mc... but the movie makes it pretty clear pretty quickly.
Posted by: David Poland at October 24, 2008 12:52 PM
As did the trailer, which aligns with your comment "What is the point? I'm not sure Eastwood/Straczynski ever figured it out." It looks like a movie in which stuff happens to no particular end.
Posted by: jeffmcm at October 24, 2008 12:59 PM
The whole "woman loses her son" aspect is just the entry point for a film that is about the corruption of the police department (and the lengths they will go to break down a woman for their own gains) and a serial killer that is able to operate because the LAPD was too busy locking up women for not accepting things like their missing child being returned to them...but isn't their child.
Posted by: Noah at October 24, 2008 01:14 PM
Zzzzzzzz...
POSSIBLE SPOILER
And do you really think that the serial killer was getting away with it for a while because of the Jolie story... or was it because boys run away, were even less traceable back then, and it wasn't seen as a priority for that reason?
There was a doc on TV the other night about human traficking that still goes on with, mostly, young girls in this country. Lots of it. And the police still won't quickly investigate missing persons. But it doesn't seem to be because of corruption.
Wouldn't the police in Changeling LOVE to find a serial killer in order to show how smart they were? Wouldn't that have been a better story than her falsely recovered child?
END SPOILERS
Sorry... just not willing to make excuses for the lack of any real dramatic weight in this movie.
Posted by: David Poland at October 24, 2008 01:20 PM
CONTINUING SPOILERS
I think the police would have loved to find a serial killer, but too much of their power was spent "taking out the competition" as they show in that montage. There weren't enough policemen dispatched to do real police work and were instead spending their time returning a missing kid who wasn't really the missing kid. If they had continued to search for Jolie's kid, perhaps they would have found the serial killer. The point was that the police department gave up on the case as soon as the kid was returned because they got their photo op, but they probably gave up way before then.
And yes, there is still a waiting period for the police today which is precisely what makes this story relevant to today. Also, the idea of a parent losing their child and being told that they are crazy repeatedly by people in power, that deals with a lot of frustration that people feel today with bureaucracy and red tape.
I can't tell you that you should have FELT more when watching the film, but I definitely was moved by parts of it. I don't think it's a perfect film - the ending drags quite a bit - but I was intrigued by it. I just don't remember the last Lifetime film that involved serial killers, but maybe I should watch more Lifetime if the films are as good as this one.
Posted by: Noah at October 24, 2008 01:30 PM
Hmmmm, I guess this is a movie I'm going to need to see a second time to understand why people think it's so bad...
Posted by: PanTheFaun at October 24, 2008 04:51 PM
WRONG!
Jefferey Donovan OWNED.
Liked this a lot more than D-Po, though given Clint's reputation as a master of the understated, thought a lot of this was pitched at roughly the subtlety range of the white-trash family scenes in M$B that seem to bother a lot of people so much. The bad guys are often well into Snidely Whiplash/Simon Legree territory, though I didn't feel it hurt the integrity of the story or the filmmaking. Others will surely disagree -- the fairly crowded matinee I caught had some scattered bad laughter, though most of it from one creepy guy who laughed heartily at inappropriate dramatic bits throughout.
I don't know how DP gets that Jolie was "a bland of piece of bread," as I thought she was pretty riveting throughout, and is obviously completely magnetic on screen doing just about anything. I'll go with DP on Malkovich, who was just kinda goofy here, and even I haven't decided if that Norcott dude is some new ACTING GENIUS or just giving a completely ridiculous performance.
And hey, WHO WAS THAT LARRY MILLER LOOKING GOOD COP WHO SOLVED THE INITAL CRIME? THAT GUY RULED. And did anyone notice THE JUDGE IN THE ONE CASE IS LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE JOHN MCCAIN? That seemed to get a bad laugh.
It really is kind of a "Mystic River" redux, down to the flashback reveals, musical cues, and big emotional outburts. If anything, it's lacking that coincidence-laden potboiler structure that bothers some about MR...
I certainly liked it... definitely need to dwell on it a little more, as I agree with some of Dave's complaints but think he's being way too hard.
Posted by: LexG at October 24, 2008 07:13 PM
"John Malkovich can do little wrong for me"
Have you not seen Colour Me Kubrick? Ugh. Such a terribly unfunny and excruciating experience that movie was.
Naturally - as I don't live in LA or NY - I have yet to see this movie so I have nothing at all to say on the way. Tralala.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at October 25, 2008 07:12 AM
on the way? On the matter.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at October 25, 2008 07:13 AM
Just wait till it goes national on Halloween.
Overblown tripe + Oscar-Whoring = Box Office Poison.
Posted by: Chucky in Jersey at October 25, 2008 08:10 AM
Hyperbole and misinformation, Chucky.
Posted by: jeffmcm at October 25, 2008 10:05 AM
really nice movie
i love it too and its wallpaper also photos
Posted by: rajeshadept at November 4, 2008 10:21 PM
just a good movie
Posted by: rajeshadept at November 4, 2008 10:22 PM
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