[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]There were three reasons to be enthused about seeing “Changeling.” In no particular order: 1) Angelina Jolie who, when not collecting a paycheck from comic book detritus like “Wanted” or simply gallivanting (admittedly to our delight) as Lara Croft, is certain an actress of note. 2) Clint Eastwood, the quintessential director’s director whose mastery of filmcraft consistently yields handsome, unassuming but polished work – classical in the best sense of the word. And 3) J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), the man behind the milestone science-fiction series “Babylon 5”, an insightful writer who marks his first foray into feature films after years in television. All three reasons are amply justified by “Changeling,” a dramatic retelling of a sordid event in Los Angeles history.

Beginning with the disappearance, on March 10th, 1928, of ten-year-old Walter Collins, what happened would shame many horror films and provoke sheer disbelief: the police, after months of searching, returned with a boy Christine Collins (Jolie) identified as not being her son. The LAPD’s insistence that the boy was, indeed, Walter enmeshed Christine in a sinister conspiracy involving the police and the psychiatric establishment. In the old folk tales, changelings are fairy babies that take the place of human ones; in this case, the changeling is an attack on a woman’s mind, a horrifically intimate violation of her motherhood and sense of self.

JMS crafted the screenplay drawing on his journalistic background and a year’s worth of research. “I had to annotate every single scene, where it came from,” he told MovieMaker.com. “95 percent of what’s in the movie was taken verbatim from testimony, articles of the time, transcripts and correspondence. It really had to be rigorously factual.” But that the film is the product of painstaking research over an incident that is largely unknown – and true! – is almost beside the point; “Changeling” is a tense, unpredictable, straight-shooting, unnerving drama, and mercifully free of the time traveling editing artifices and sensationalism of genre thrillers. Angelina Jolie turns in a beautifully malleable performance; wracked by despair, gripped with doubt, resolute in her devotion to finding her son. But other performances prove very strong, like Jason Butler Harner as a deranged, peculiar young man and, with a wonderful face and stentorian voice, Geoffrey Pierson as attorney S. S. Hahn.

It might be tempting to think that “Changeling” is another hit piece on the LAPD, but with recent revelations of a severe backlog on rape kit analyses and mishandled fingerprint evidence that casts doubts on countless convictions, the LAPD seems to blacken its own eye well enough on its own. No need to even bring up Rodney King or Rampart. But while “Changeling” does hit hard with a missing child case that exposed police corruption and misconduct on a scarcely believable scale, it isn’t petty, and the message, insofar as “Changeling” is indirectly a message movie, is universal.

Entertainment Value: ** (out of two)

Technical Quality: ** (out of two)

Gold star!

Changeling. Written by J. Michael Straczynski. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Angelina Jolie, John Malkevich, Jeffrey Donovan, Jason Butler Harner, Geoffrey Pierson, and Michael Kelly. 140 minutes. Rated R (for some violent and disturbing content, and language).

Frédérik invites you to discuss "Changeling" and more at his blog.