Live Life Team
At first look ‘Changeling’ seems like another version of ‘Mystic River’ but Clint Eastwood never ceases to amaze me. Not only was ‘Changeling’ a really good movie to watch, it made me marvel at Clint Eastwood, who’s pushing 80 but still making some of the best movies in Hollywood.
‘Changeling’ is a not such a publicised true story. In fact, I read somewhere that former journalist J. Michael Straczynski went all out to research the story and ninety per cent of the dialogue of the movie is copied directly from the records of the court.
‘Changeling’ tells the story of Christine Colins (Angelina Jolie), a young single mother in 1928 LA, whose child Walter (Gattlin Griffith) is kidnapped. Together with a pastor (John Malkovich) they launch a battle against the LAPD and its corrupt officials. After several months, a young boy is returned to her amid much media fanfare but to her shock Christine discovers the boy isn’t hers. But she is immediately transferred to a psychiatric ward for this non-acceptance while the real Walter is fated to become one of those killed in the horrific Wineville Chicken Coop Murders.
If you watch the movie you’ll agree that there is no unnecessary dramatisation in the movie. It’s almost like an enactment of a news story. But yet, it isn’t a documentary and remains intensely gripping. What’s amazing is that not only is Clint Eastwood’s direction brilliant, there are times during the movie I found it physically uncomfortable and unnerving to watch Angelina Jolie. She was so convincing in her portrayal of the anguished mum that I actually found myself feeling her pain and close to tears several times.
Go watch it to see what I mean.
