Changeling

Clint Eastwood, 2008

Going into a film 95% blind is difficult to accomplish. Thanks to the media frenzied world we call home, contemporary films coming out a dozen a day announce themselves months in advance. When we sit and watch one we know who is in it, who made it, and something about the plot. If we’ve seen more than 20 films in the past we can probably tell you several more things about the plot.

I missed Changeling. I knew it had Angelina Jolie, and that it was one of her bleeding heart movies. Although it was exactly that, it had an unusual dose of righteous triumph that tasted good at times.

Otherwise, pacing was inexorably slow, and not in a bad way. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, in a time of movies paced like meteor showers and Ritalin test labs, long pans and tingles of piano music ramp up tension.

The plot itself doesn’t give itself away, almost ever. Hard to do when you hear the premise: Woman has child kidnapped and the returned child is not her own. Right, then you think, well, she’ll fight it and get him back. Cut and dry. However, Eastwood makes us rethink how things happened with police and women’s rights in 1928, and suddenly the story is twice as interesting. The interest factor adds to the tension, and the sympathy for the various characters.

Jolie, for her part, does not sex up the character at all and thanks to a reduction bra and some genuine acting, the role of Christine Collins is magnetic unlike any other character she has played. You literally want to hug this woman and punch some guys in the face on her behalf. It’s a new feeling. It magnifies the emotion you have already put into the show. It’s a surprise.

Such a surprise is bought at a high price. Christine is so sympathetic because she is put in so brutal and hopeless a situation. The situation, dealing with police, serial killers of children, kidnappings from well-to-do neighborhoods, mental institutes and radio priests, is smothers like LA smog. It is not fun to watch. It is perfect, in that it is complete. It is beautiful in that it elicits such strong reactions from the viewers, but I doubt I could ever watch Changeling again.