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Fearures Actors:Angelina Jolie, Devon Conti & Gattlin Griffith Running Time:142 Min. Rating:R The point of departure is March 9, 1928, which is when we are introduced to Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single-mom raising a nine year-old (Gattlin Griffith) in the City of Los Angeles. By profession, Christine roams around the floor of the phone company on roller skates as the supervisor of a bank of operators. The plot thickens the fateful Saturday she agrees to fill-in for a co-worker, leaving little Walter home alone. By the time she returns after the shift, the boy has vanished without a clue, so she calls the police to file a missing persons report. Several months later the cops claim to have solved the mystery, and announce that Walter's been found alive and well. However, Christine's hopes are soon dashed when the child returned to her is an impostor (Devon Conti) who is four inches short than her son. Now, this is where the movie starts to make no sense. Instead of accepting the mother's simple assertion that this was not her son, we're led to believe the LAPD instead s pressured Christine to take custody of a perfect stranger. Doesn't that sound inhuman? And how long could a young impersonator keep up such a charade, even if he had wanted to? Wouldn't the fraud have been exposed the first time "Walter" went out to play with his friends, visited relatives, greeted neighbors or went to school? Something doesn't add up here. Hope this helps you decide.Thanks for reading! :)Read full review
You couldn't make this stuff up. A truly bizarre story that really happened. So bizarre, I had to google the story just to see if the movie was being true to the actual story or embellished by Hollywood. Well, it kept true to the real story. 1920s Los Angeles. The LA police dept. is very corrupt and have ways of "hushing up" people that could expose them or embarrass them. For women, this means being escorted to a women's sanitarium and deemed crazy. Angelia Jolie plays a single mom who's only son is abducted. Months later, a boy is found that claims to be her missing son. Only, the mom sees him and claims he's not her son. The LA police were taking a lot of hero praise for reuniting mother and son and insist the boy is hers, he says he's hers, and she's just confused. She takes him in anyway, knowing he's not her son, but continues to pressure police into continuing the search for real, still missing, son. She even gathers witnesses to confirm the mystery boy is not her son. The police, continue to argue that the boy is hers and accuse her of being a bad mother trying to unload her son and her responsibility as a parent. The more she pushes the police, the more they push back until they finally put her away in the women's sanitarium. Now enter the real kidnapper. He preys on young boys, lures them into his truck, and drives them out to his "chicken farm" where he locks them up in a coop. He systematically murders these young boys. Her son is one of them. So who is this mystery boy that claims he's her son? He's a runaway, that read about the story in the newspapers and always wanted to go to Hollywood to meet his movie hero. So, he ran away from home, got rides from strangers and then claimed to be the missing boy from the newspapers to get the rest of the way to Hollywood. Once there, he just played the part of the missing boy in order to hopefully meet his favorite actor. Once all the corruption and lies is exposed, and the kidnapper is caught and his crimes exposed, the mom sues the police dept. and then goes in to another court room to watch the trial of her son's kidnapper/murderer. But, she never lost hope that her son may have escaped and is out there wondering around frightened. To the day she died, she never stopped hoping and looking for her son. A sad, bizarre story that is too incredible to believe, yet, it all actually happened.Read full review
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By Karl J. Paloucek from the Channel Guide Store Endless stories of human resilience sluice out of Hollywood year after year, but we never tire of them. It never gets any less amazing to see what people can endure and rise above, and how they change as a result. Changeling, based on true events and directed by Clint Eastwood, takes the worst fate to befall a mother — the sinister disappearance of her child — and illuminates the grim and dirty process of turning uncertain tragedy into hope. Single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) and her son Walter have carved out a difficult but happy life in late 1920s Los Angeles. She works as a telephone switchboard overseer by day, rushing home on the streetcar to be with her son … until the day she returns and Walter is gone. So begins Christine’s frantic crusade for her son and the horrible truth of his fate that will drag her life into dark folds of anxiety, coercion and despair. Aided by a local broadcast evangelist, the Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), she takes on the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department that has tried to mollify her and close the case on her missing boy. The film’s title references, in part, the ersatz Walter that the police all but force Christine to accept as her son, despite her instinctive knowledge that he isn’t. But it’s her refusal to accept the deceit, coupled with her drive to find her son and the truth of his fate, that catalyzes the real transformation at the heart of this film. It’s naturally a bit challenging to separate Jolie’s character from the star’s own well-publicized fondness for motherhood. Christine is an obvious role for Jolie at this point in her life, as she and beau Brad Pitt have embraced parenthood so wholly and publicly. Her portrayal of Christine’s anguish is palpably, convincingly rendered, but through little fault of her own, her celebrity overexposure can’t help but find its way into a role she no doubt feels on a personal level. But that isn’t to say it’s any less difficult or effective of a film to take in. Over and over, we see Christine strong-armed by the police and the grim reality that she may never know what happened to Walter. So much of the pain explored here is the hurt of not knowing — a fact underscored by its nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime. You can’t help but measure your own discomfort in waiting for the resolution against this young mother’s, for whom every minute of uncertainty likely seems a lifetime.Read full review
Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, in an Oscar nominated role) is overjoyed when her kidnapped son is brought back home. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her is not her child, the police captain (Jeffrey Donovan) has her committed to an asylum. The abuse of power draws in a crusading reverend (John Malkovich) who comes to Christines rescue, and finally gets her released from the situation-but can not help her to find her real son. When comfronted in Court, the boy that replaced her son reveals his true motives and some of the things he does know about Christines real son. This movie is based on an actual account that happened in California in the 1930 s, and as it turns out the town it happened in-even changed its name after the incident. Director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, Absolute Power, etc) turns out another great movie that more than fill a nights entertainment-especially the ending, where you will start to find out the real truth of the true life incident as it happened.Read full review
A good movie but not a great one. I salute Mr. Eastwood on his body of work and admire him for making this type of movie subject. I worked for the Riverside County Sheriff Dept. and had no idea that the murder location was in what is now Glen Avon. It's my understanding that a mob formed and wanted to lynch the murder and the sheriff at that time stood on the jail steps with a shot gun and the mob stood down. This movie should be watched as a "period piece" doing a great job with the "look" of L.A. of the 20's!! That aspect makes this movie worthy of watching!! An "8" with "Unforgiven" being a "10"!!! On the whole..great work...
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