Living in the City of Angels now (but having grown up in relatively ancient New England), it’s hard to imagine how certain über-populated areas were little more than fields a mere fifty years ago.  That massive burst of development that transformed LA from a small coastal city to the second largest metropolitan area in America has led to a decidedly unique criminal history, frequently exhibiting a Wild West frontier attitude in both the underworld and law enforcement.

Not surprisingly, that centerpiece of Los Angeles, Hollywood has frequently explored just those criminal stories.  Some attempts, like The Black Dahlia, fall flat on their face by not focusing enough on the actual crime and by expounding so much on the backstory that the facts are eventually lost.  But those that work, like Clint Eastwood’s 2008 Changeling, do so by sticking closely to the truth and letting the bizarre nature of the cases speak for themselves.

Changeling follows the largely forgotten story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) whose son Walter (Gattling Griffith) mysteriously disappears while she is at work.  After five months, a nationwide manhunt turns up a youth (Devon Conti) who claims he is the missing boy but whom Christine immediately realizes is not her son.  However, the Los Angeles Police Department, desperate for good press after countless scandals, convinces Christine to take the boy home on a trial basis.  She is quickly able to gather irrefutable evidence that this other kid is a fake, but the LAPD refuses to listen and instead commits her to an insane asylum under “Code 12”, a statute giving them the discretionary power to get rid of someone deemed an inconvenience.  Only after the remains of several boys are uncovered on the property of a drifter, Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner), and Walter IDed in a photograph as having been kidnapped by Northcott is Christine finally released.  Her abuse exposes the corruption running rampant in the LA Police Department.

The scary thing is, it’s all true.  Reading up on the specifics of the case, I was amazed at just how accurate Eastwood’s portrayal of the events actually was.  Sure there were some small changes (most notably the imposter’s eventual confession being moved after Christine’s release) and some minor participants combined to form some of the lesser characters, but overall Clint was remarkably (and admirably) accurate.

Changeling was nominated for numerous Academy Awards, and deservedly so.  Jolie is excellent as Christine Collins, and the supporting cast also delivers.  The production design is beautiful in envisioning 1920s Los Angeles; knowing so many of the locations very well myself, I was very impressed by the meticulous recreation.  My biggest complaint is that the pace of the film lags somewhat in the first third, at times becoming repetitious with Christine’s various reiterations that the imposter is not her son.  Once the film breaks through that stage, however, it really picks up.

Video / Audio / Extras

Picture and sound—standard stuff: 2.40:1 widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.  Looks good, sounds good.  In another testament to the filmmaking, Eastwood makes very good use of the rear audio channels, some of the more pronounced and effective I’ve seen in a drama.

Special features, on the other hand—yikes!  Only two featurettes, not even a trailer or commentary track.  The first featurette, “Partners in Crime: Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie” is sorely misnamed—it has almost nothing to do with Jolie—and while it purports to be an in depth analysis of how the story was brought to screen, it only touches on a couple key points of the process (fortunately, one of those points was about the challenges faced in duplicating the LA of the 1920s in the LA of today).  There is also a lengthy section in which various cast and crew talk about how great it was to work with Eastwood; it would have been cheesy if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve heard similar Clint stories from my own personal contacts.

The second featurette, “The Common Thread: Angelina Jolie Becomes Christine Collins”, likewise is lacking in content.  Instead of going into a detailed analysis of Jolie’s process for becoming her character, it also only focuses on one aspect, that being how the costumes helped her become the role.

The problem with both these extras is that, while the content contained can be interesting, they completely lack structure and cohesion.  They each set forth ostensibly to show some element of production, but are so loosely thrown together that the fail to do so.

Final Words

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.