Changeling seems like a movie that should have been made in the 20s. It's strict criticism of the Los Angeles Police Department at the time comes across as a somewhat out-of-date political message. Thankfully, though, this viewpoint is not what drives the film. Rather, the characters are what flesh out an otherwise moot argument. The movie is not trying to elicit change in a police force that existed eight years ago. It simply tells a true story, and a particularly haunting one at that.
The film stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a supervisor at a local telephone company. She is a single mother of one boy (Walter Collins); one day, after she returns from a Saturday at work, she finds him gone without a trace. Such a situation would cause fear in any parent, particularly a mother. She immediately calls the police, who tell her that no officers are sent out on missing persons cases until twenty-four hours after they are reported missing. This response only increases her confusion.
The movie then follows her over the course of six months, until finally, a boy who claims to be her son is given to her by the infamously corrupt police. However, Collins is sure that he is not - and her intuition is confirmed by the fact that this boy is three inches shorter than the real Walter was. The police send in paid doctors to convince her that the boy could have changed and do everything in their power to not have this one piece of good press ruined. Eventually, after Collins refuses to accept the boy as her own and continually asks for the police’s help in finding him, she is thrown in a psychiatric hospital and presumed insane. Luckily, she attracts the help of a local Presbyterian preacher, Gustav A. Briegleb (played by John Malkovich). He is a particularly outspoken member of the community and has labored continuously to expose the police force for what they are. With his help, she is eventually freed. You’ll just have to watch the movie to know how it ends.
I’ve left out a large part of the plot, because I had no idea of its existence until I watched the film, so I’ll leave it for this reader to discover as well. However, I will say that it takes the movie into much darker places than what the above plot description would imply.
The acting in the film is quite incredible, and Angelina Jolie certainly deserved the Best Actress nomination for her role. However, John Malkovich really makes the film and lights up every scene that he’s in. The child actors are also particularly good. The movie is directed by Clint Eastwood, who has shown himself to be an extremely capable storyteller over the years.
Intentional or not, one catches a glimpse of Eastwood’s views on religion through the film. There are two religious characters in the movie, each of which is entirely different. The first (who makes up the whole of that large plot piece I left out) is a psychopathic murderer, who has pictures of Mary and Jesus and rosary beads on his desk. The second is a preacher who uses his social influence to propagate his political agenda. It appears that either one is completely messed up by stringent religious rules or one can use the social influence religion provides to affect change. Neither presents any sort of personal life experience. Props must be given to Eastwood for portraying the preacher as an extremely moral individual. It’s just interesting to examine how he chooses to portray religion in his films.
Changeling is an extremely well-done and entertaining film. It is dark, but it ends with a ray of hope. Just the knowledge that her son could possibly still be alive provides Collins with optimism. She clearly loved her son very, very much. Such a selfless love is reminiscent of God’s desire for us. He’d be willing to do anything to get us back which, thankfully, He has. All we have to do is accept his free gift, and that gives a much more lasting hope than the transient.
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