It has been said that the best stories come from real life. Now even though that doesn’t bode well for something like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, it nonetheless is true for Clint Eastwood’s latest, Changeling. This is a truly real, classically made, nuts and bolts motion picture that compels from start to finish.
Based on a true story, Changeling is about a woman, Christine Collins, who one day comes home from work to find her young son missing. She immediately calls the police and an investigation is soon launched. After a few months the police say they’ve found her son and make arrangements to bring him home to his mother. However upon seeing the boy, Christine realises that the police have made a mistake and it’s not in fact her son, even though the police insist that he is.
Clint Eastwood has always been a very structured filmmaker. He has said numerous times that he doesn’t like flashy techniques or special ways of filming any given scene. He’s always been about letting the story and the characters do the talking, and this is very much evident with Changeling. And since he often works from stories that are based partially on real life events this mentality works very well. One could argue that it’s never worked as well as it does with Changeling. No one can look you in the eyes with a straight face and say that Eastwood is a bad director — just look at a couple of his most recent efforts, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. He has such a grasp of what makes not just a worthwhile movie, but a through and through film. This is one of the most competent directors working today and he applies his decades of experience, both in front of and behind the camera, with great conviction.
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Article comments
1 - Jack
I don't agree the film has too many - or even any - side plots. All the story strands relate ultimately to the main one - Christine's quest to find out what happened to her son. And a minor correction if I may. Jack Green was the cinematographer who shot Unforgiven, not Tom Stern. Otherwise an excellent review.
One thing that most impressed me about Changeling was how well Eastwood's film kept my attention. From an editing perspective it's a top notch piece of work. There weren't any saggy moments or scenes that felt as though they could have been trimmed, which, in a two hour & 21 minute movie was quite something.
Aside from anything else Changeling struck me as a potent reminder of the sheer pleasure to be had from watching the proverbial good story well told. I found its themes & concerns - particularly the way a mother is blamed for her child's welfare by incompetent/corrupt authority figures - deeply & troublingly resonant. It seems to me that no other living American director can match Eastwood right now. The man is simply in a class of his own.
2 - Wendy
Such a nice review! This movie wasn't perfect, indeed it was quite flawed in many aspects, but there was something about it that left me breathless by the time the credits started rolling. And I'm not easily impressed! This was a trademark Clint Eastwood film, but I felt it was very different from his other works such as Million Dollar Baby. For once, I had no problem with Angelina Jolie's acting - so powerful yet understated - although her character was too saintly for my taste. Finally, Hollywood did something right!
Above all, it was the story that had the biggest impact on me, and I hope I can find a movie or book as good as Changeling. As soon I finished watching the movie in the theater, I rushed home to look up the real story. It's truly devastating.
If you’re a fan of the movie Changeling and want to know the backstory of Sanford Clark and Gordon Northcott, I just learned that writer Anthony Flacco has a publishing deal with Sterling for The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders. It’s being described as a psychological thriller written in cooperation with the adult living son of Sanford Clark. The book, I’m told, will be out in Fall ’09.