Changeling

Though he"s pushing well into his 70s, Clint Eastwood continues to tackle themes about America that directors half his age would likely pass on for the easier hunting ground of action flicks. In 'Changeling", he transports us back 90 years to Los Angeles during a time when the City of Angels was anything but. In a provocative drama based on actual events that forever transformed the city, Eastwood tells the story of one woman whose invincible spirit and refusal to surrender brought down a corrupt police department and ushered in a new era of equality under the law. One Saturday in March 1928, in a working-class suburb, single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) says goodbye to her nine-year-old son, Walter, and leaves for her job as a telephone operator. But when Collins returns to their modest home, she is confronted with every parent"s worst nightmare: her son has vanished. An exhaustive and fruitless search ensues, but the child has disappeared without a trace...until five months later, when her boy is returned by police eager to bask in the public relations coup of reuniting mother and child. Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters, photographers and her own conflicted emotions, Collins is persuaded to take the boy home. But, in her heart, she knows the child is not her Walter. As she pushes authorities to keep looking for her real son, Collins learns that in Prohibition-era LA, women don"t challenge the system and live to tell their story. Slandered as delusional and unfit, she finds an ally in community activist Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who helps her fight the city to look for her missing boy. Facing corrupt police who question her sanity and a public hungry for a fairy-tale ending, Christine desperately hunts for answers. As she searches, she becomes an unlikely heroine for the poor and downtrodden who have been systematically abused and swept aside by the police state that has gripped LA. Now, one woman"s quest won"t stop until she finds her son...unless those assigned to protect and serve silence her for good. The history of Los Angeles is marked by many tales of corruption, cover-ups and murder during the city"s formative years - but it was the little-remembered story of one working-class woman"s struggle amidst insurmountable odds to find her missing son that would, almost 80 years later, forge a partnership between several of Hollywood"s most highly regarded filmmakers. The incredible tale of Christine Collins was one that almost vanished into obscurity before a former journalist stumbled upon her sensational, poignant story. Los Angeles in 1928 was in the grips of a despotic political infrastructure led by Mayor George E Cryer and enforced by Police Chief James E 'Two Guns" Davis and his sanctioned gun squad that terrorised the city at will. That despotic rule began to unravel when Collins began to challenge the system. Despite her repeated declarations that the boy returned was not hers, Collins was rebuffed by the officer in charge of her case, Captain JJ Jones. She was told to 'try him out for a couple of weeks.' When Collins protested the child was not hers, the system committed her to the county psychopathic ward as a patient, instead of admitting the mistake of returning the wrong boy. Although Collins died in 1935 not knowing whatever happened to her son, screenwriter Michael Straczynski sums up just how powerful her legacy was: 'She never abandoned the quest to find out what happened to her son. That tenacity carried her through things that would break anybody else, but she never once stopped fighting.' Following on from films like 'Chinatown" and 'LA Confidential", Eastwood has fashioned a film of deep resonance here - nothing like his 'Million Dollar Baby" or 'Unforgiven", mind you, but still powerful in an understated way. Tackling not just the outright corruption of the day, but also the harrowing lot of the single unwed mother during such gender unfriendly times, he has once again fashioned a film that makes you do that rare thing on leaving the cinema anymore - think. Jolie, a woman seemingly better known as an adoptive mother and other half of Brad, once again proves her acting credentials here in a role that could well nab her an Oscar nomination next January. Eastwood, as always, moves the film in an assured manner - though the script does wander and lapse at regular intervals. He also composed the film"s score, an effective asset to the overall effect. 'Changeling" is a difficult kind of entertainment, and perhaps not the kind of thing you"ll want if it"s a Saturday night out to forget the recession you"re after. If, on the other hand, you want a film that"ll have you talking to your significant other about it on the way home, this is a good choice.