Review: The Changeling (with trailer)

By Nigel Powlson

THE Changeling is such a remarkable story that it needs little or no embellishment to retain its power in cinematic form.

Thankfully, veteran director Clint Eastwood understands this and plays it straight – allowing his tale to unfold exactly as it happened with the audience never ahead of the characters.

Angelina Jolie stars as Christine Collins, a single mother with a nine-year-old son in 1928 Los Angeles.

More about this movie

Having been called in for an unexpected weekend shift at the telephone exchange, she leaves her boy Walter home alone.

When she returns much later than she had hoped, he is gone.

A reluctant police force launches a belated search after he fails to show up for 24 hours but unearths no clues as to his whereabouts.

Five months later an LAPD captain (Jeffrey Donovan) tells Christine her son has been found hundreds of miles away.

But when she meets him at the railway station, she knows it's not her missing boy.

With a corrupt police force determined to end the case happily the mother's protests are ignored and when she refuses to go away quietly her sanity is questioned.

Locked in an asylum, only a presbyterian preacher (John Malkovich), who broadcasts daily attacking police corruption, has the power to help her.

Blessed with a quality script from J Michael Straczynski, Eastwood makes sure every other detail is also up to scratch.

The careful recreation of period California; the well-balanced score and the exquisite cinematography all mark this out as a film blessed with genuine technical quality.

Jolie gives a restrained and well judged performance where others could easily have resorted to the hysterical and it's to her credit that it's hard to believe this is the same actress who starred in the glossy action thriller Wanted. It's the kind of performance that should maker her an awards season contender.

Even John Malkovich, all too easily prone to excess, keeps his mannerisms in check.

It's only really Eastwood's languid pace that lets the side down, especially in the first hour.

A few well-chosen cuts and a less lingering eye from the director would have been a real benefit.

But that shouldn't detract too much from a film which always has the satisfaction of knowing that the truth can be so much more powerful than fiction.

THE CHANGELING

CERTIFICATE: 15

RUNNING TIME: 141 mins

STARTS: Today at Showcase; Odeon, Cinema De Lux in Derby; Cineworld in Burton; Quad in Derby from December 19; Belper Ritz from December 12