Changeling (2008)

I was conflicted about seeing this film. I almost always like Clint Eastwood's directing style, but I almost never like Angelina Jolie. Eastwood's view through the camera lens is clean and pure. It is like looking up from a book when you have been reading all day, and suddenly all the words that have been swimming in front of your eyes are gone. Jolie, in most of her films it seems, is either a caricature or empty (See my review of Wanted). But Eastwood manages to sand down the rough edges. In fact, even-handedness is the word of the day with the film.

Changeling begins in 1920s Los Angeles, an idyllic, bygone existence. Mrs. Collins is a single mother of a nine-year old boy, Walter. The two have carved out a simple, if predictable, life together. It then chronicles the horrific serial killer that is uncovered while investigating the child's disappearance. His mother (Jolie) is adamant that they boy returned to her by the insistent LAPD is not her son. Afraid to be further reviled and embarrassed the force seeks to subvert Mrs. Collins' protestations -- first by threat, then by committing her to an insane asylum. Using the excuse of her delicate femininity and the stress of losing her only son as an excuse, they inflict rigorous physical and emotional torture. Their object is either to break her will, or keep her in the sanitarium -- either way, she is prevented from speaking to the press or being believed. Finally, an astute (and not corrupt) detective takes an interest in the case and the pieces start to make sense.

Eastwood's steady direction makes this film work. It easily could have become a vehement, man-hating manifesto. Instead it lands as an anti-corruption treatise and interesting historical chronicle of a story lost to time. It encourages the spectator to rethink what is "crazy", what we believe in ourselves and of others. It encourages the audience not to give up. Although she is "saved" by a man, it is not because he is a male figure that he helps. He is a character who believes in fairness. And, in fact, she was just as tormented by women in her stay at the asylum. It is the detective's fairness, and Eastwood's attempt at fairness, that allows the film to stand as a fully-explored tale. It also deftly handles what is an awful series of murders. Eastwood puts across the terror of his victims and the helplessness of their situation without making a gory mess of things.

As usual, Eastwood's art direction brings to life a Los Angeles of the past -- one that is so important to understanding the context of the story (the color choices alone warrants an article). It also features a typically-simple musical motif. Changeling is not ground-breaking, or even surprising, but it is solid filmmaking with an interesting story to tell -- which is hard enough to achieve anymore.

Also starring Jeffery Donovan, John Malkovich, and Michael Kelly.

Wanted

To be sure, the setting in which I viewed this formulaic film (a nearly sold-out stadium seating screen with teens who also managed to simultaneously carry on full-volume conversations and text absent friends) did not help my opinion of it. There were actually elements that made me think at some point a real writer had his hands on the script. (There are three credited - which could mean several more who were not). I cannot decide whether it began as a fairly good script and was stripped or if a writer was brought in to stitch some dangling pieces back together. If the former is the case, it would explain how they signed Freeman and McAvoy to the project. But it seems more likely that the latter is true, since the basis is rather silly to begin with.
In true Star Wars rip-off fashion, the audience is introduced to nihilistic father who has a son he's never known. The two lead opposite existences - The father as cutthroat assassin and son as a account management specialist with a hungry cat and an annoying girlfriend. His father is killed on a rooftop ambush and the league of assassins to which he belonged recruits his son, played by James McAvoy. The lure is his father's assets, which are quite substantial, and the sultry stare and tattooed arms of Angelina Jolie, who looks pretty much like a Gap ad the whole time (white shirt, khakis, too much eyeliner).
Morgan Freeman plays the head of this secret society, which has its roots in the ancient Weavers clans from 1000 years ago. Then the attempts to tie this story together can no longer hold. It turns out that these assassins are working on the information given to them by the "Loom of Fate", a giant machine of Industrial Revolution era that is fed by a web of strings from somewhere in the ether. This loom produces a coded message, hidden in the patterns of weave which equal 1s and 0s - a binary code - which when translated equals a person's name, who is next on the list to be killed.
There is training and heartache and distrust and learning and all the feel-good things that go along with being thrown into a new environment. The only thing that makes these standard scenes watchable is McAvoy. He stunningly manages to find footholds in the precipitous script. Yet even he cannot save the last of many Star Wars scenes badly referenced. McAvoy learns the true identity of his father too late and after dangling by one hand, chooses to fall down a massive chasm rather than face the lie. Really, we had to go to Empire Strikes Back for this? He does as the script insists, but I couldn't help but notice a hint of reluctance.