Watching this film is like riding an emotional roller coaster; I was absolutely drained by the experience. Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort is a movie of impressive emotional impact; it draws you in, makes you care, and allows you to become a participant in its tale of loss, corruption, hope, and rage. It is a powerful journey with characters whose lives will stick with you long after the last credits roll. Just don't mistake this for a remake of the 1980 horror film The Changeling — that is a completely different beast.
Changeling is based on the true story of a woman whose son disappeared under mysterious circumstances and her crusade to find him and bring him home alive. Just how closely the events portrayed in the film resemble reality is anyone's guess. Any film based on a true story is invariably going to be "punched up" to make the events more dramatic in order to capture the audience. As we all know, reality is boring. If you want reality, all you need do is step out your front door. In order to make reality more inviting on the screen it needs to be amped up a little, made bigger than life. I believe the broad strokes are accurate, but the finer points have likely been adjusted. Still, true or not, this is a tragic story that grabs your heart and squeezes.
What makes this movie so good, and also demonstrates Eastwood's skill, is the way the story unfolds. The story is one perfectly set up to be a traditional thriller, but that is not what is done here. The approach certainly has some thriller elements, but it chooses to allow the story to unfold, unspooling its drama through outrage, protest, and a desire to find the truth.
In March of 1928, Christine Collins went to work and when she returned home her 9-year-old son, Walter, was missing. A police investigation followed. After months of searching Walter was found in Illinois. An ecstatic Christine could not wait to be reunited with her son. There was only one problem — the boy who stepped off the train was not Walter. Christine said as much and the police just thought she was distraught and not thinking clearly. They stuck to their story despite the facts: the youngster didn't know his school teacher, he was three inches shorter upon his return, and his teeth didn't match his dental records. Still, the police stood by their story that this was Walter, thus ending the search that Christine fought to keep open.
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Article comments
1 - lacey
This movie is now one of my favorites. It made me cry in the theater. It is so good! I could not believe what a good job the cast did. And hats off to Clint Eastwood. This movie captured the time and the tragedy. It is so sad that this had actually happend, I could not imagine.