Changeling

It was only a matter of time before Changeling hit the multiplex. What producer could resist? It’s a nonfiction account of a missing child, corrupt police and a tragic case of mistaken identity. It’s also that rarest of Hollywood breeds: A damn good story that even hack filmmakers would have a hard time wrecking. All the movie needed was a willing starlet and an old-hand director to shepherd it into production.

Enter Angelina Jolie and Clint Eastwood, Hollywood royalty who can make any movie they want – even a slow-burning period piece set in 1928.

Jolie slips into another plain Jane disguise as Christine Collins, a working single mother whose comes home to discover that her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) is missing. As days turn into weeks, and local detectives fail to find the boy, pressure grows from the public, embodied by Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich in an extended cameo), a populist preacher who adopts Christine’s cause as a holy war against the police.

The break in the case comes in the form of a rescued child (Devon Conti) who, the police have convinced themselves, is Christine’s missing son. The fact that no one, not even Christine, can recognize the child doesn’t disturb Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), a weaselly bureaucrat who refuses to admit that the LAPD may have made an error.

For the first hour-and-a-half, Changeling is a cutthroat, Sam Fuller-style thriller that wrings every last ounce of emotion from its lost-child premise. It’s mom-ploitation, but mom-ploitation of the highest order – a Lifetime movie with a highbrow pedigree and deadeye craftsmanship.

But somewhere along the line, Eastwood loses heart – unlike Fuller, his meanness only extends so far – and after inflating the movie with righteous tension, he pulls out a pinprick and lets the air slowly escape. Changeling executes every catharsis (and boy, do they keep coming) with cunning efficiency, but no one, least of all the director, seems to know exactly where the movie is supposed to end.

Eastwood still has a way with actors, and Jolie is magnificent in her overwrought role. Few actors could deliver mawkish lines about hope and devotion without looking ridiculous, but Jolie gracefully sidesteps the excesses of J. Michael Straczynski’s script. The rest of the no-name cast is outstanding, especially Donovan as the corrupt cop who knows he’s capable of doing the right thing – even as he knows that he’s doomed to fail.

Lest Hollywood forget that about the seriousness of the proceedings, there’s also plenty of industry glad-handing. At one point, Christine is glued to a radio, awaiting the Academy Award results. Jolie and Eastwood are self-consciously tipping their hand: Changeling is nothing if not traditional Oscar bait – well crafted, well intentioned and a little too eager to please.

Rating: ***