Cannes Film Fest 2008 (In Competition)--Clint Eastwood had done it again. Dramatically and artistically, his new period thriller, "The Changeling," based on an actual case that helped bring down a corrupt police force and ushered a new era of greater legal equality, is right up there with his seminal, Oscar-winning features, "Mystic River" in 2003 and "Million Dollar Baby" in 2004
Though a historical piece set in a particular socio-cultural context--Los Angeles in 1928-1930, with an epilogue in 1935--"The Changeling" is a dramatically gripping, supremely acted, technically accomplished picture that bears contemporary meanings due to its central set of significant issues that continues to resonate in our lives today: the sacredness of the family as an institution, the ineffectiveness and corruption of our main guardian institutions--the police force, the political machine, the welfare agencies, the mental asylums—above all, the dignity deserved and human rights accorded to any individual, regardless of social class and race.
Add to it a strong female protagonist (splendidly played by Angelina Jolie), who begins as a misfit and weakling only to find strong reserves within herself and become a genuine heroine, and you also have a film about the nascent feminist movements of the late 1920s, with insights about the position of women (and other minorities) in society back then, with strong implications for their status today.
Clearly on a roll over the past decade, in which he has helmed "Mystic River," "Million Dollar Baby," and the back to back war films that are really companion pieces, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," Eastwood is like an old French wine, the more senior he gets in age and experience, the better, deeper, and more resonant is his work.
At 78, Eastwood is at the prime of his career. With the notable exception of John Huston, who did some good films in his 70s and up to his death ("Wise Blood," "Prizzi's Honor," "The Dead," his very last picture), it's hard to think of another major American director who has continues to evolve and sharpen his already commanding skills by applying them to a diversity of genres and stories.
The collaboration of Eastwood, who here relies again on his long-time crew of cinematographer Tom Stern and editor Joel Cox, screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (who amazingly comes from journalism and TV), and actress Angelina Jolie, who gives a stronger dramatic performance in this picture than in "A Mighty Heart" last year, results in one of the bets pictures to be seen in Cannes Fest. Indeed, as of Day 7, "The Changeling" impresses as one of the highlights of a rather lukewarm competition. Alongside Desplechin's delirious French ensemble melodrama "A Christmas Tale" and the Turkish entry "Three Monkeys," it's one of the top contenders for the prestigious prize Palme d'Or. (Eastwood has never won the award).
Universal will bow the film in the late fall, the prime season for serious "meaty" movies and Oscar contenders. With strong critical support and the right handling and marketing, "The Changeling" has a good chance to receive multiple Oscar nominations in the most important categories: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actress, and several Supporting Actors. (I realize this is only late May, but the same prediction was made in this column last year out of Cannes Fest for the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" and Schnabel's "The Diving Bell").
Before I begin my analysis, a word about the title and context of viewing Eastwood's landmark movie. In French, the film is called "L'echange," which translates into "The Exchange," a better, more apt title than "The Changeling," which brings connotations of the horror genre; the movie has its share of horrific moments but it certainly is not a horror flick.
It just happened that I saw "The Changeling" early in the morning, right after a late night screening of James Gray's "Two Lovers," which is also in the main competition. Eastwood's work would have shone in any context, but coming after yet another disappointing film from Gray, the contrast was all the more striking (Yes, I know, Gray is much younger, and has made only four films, but he shows few signs of improvement as writer or director).
The new saga begins on a sunny Saturday morning in a modest home in a working class suburb of Los Angeles, when single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) says takes her nine-year old son Walter to school, then continues to ride on the same bust for her job as a telephone operator. The next day, when a co-worker gets sick and a replacement is needed, Christine violates her promise to spend the day with Walter and go to the movies (a new Chaplin film) and goes to work. Walter is upset but claims he can take of himself and that he is not afraid of the dark—despite her fears. Hours later, when Christine returns home, she faces the worst nightmare any parent can experience: her son has vanished.
Walter has disappeared without a trace; the lunch she had prepared for him is still in the fridge. The initial search for him proves fruitless. Devastated, Christine refuses to accept the new reality but begins to realize that Walter will never be found. However, four months later, when a boy claiming to be Walter is discovered in DeKalb, Illinois, Christine and the others involved in the search wait with bated breath. The police claim that letters and photos were exchanged, and the authorities believed the missing person case had been solved. Collins scraps together the money to bring the boy home, and LAPD organizes a very public photo-op reunion with the found child and anxious mother. Hoping to put a stop to the scrutiny surrounding their inability to solve this case (and others) and desperate for uplift from human-interest success to counter the string of corruption scandals, members of the department hope the reunion would spell public redemption for LAPD's top brass.
Dazed and bewildered by the turns of events and swirl of cops, reporters, and photographers, Christine is persuaded to take the boy home. Confused and disoriented, she agrees, and the case presumably closed. Or is it?
The "only" problem is that the child who arrived "home" was not Walter. The evidence is right there: the new boy is three inches shorter (Christine had the habit of measuring Walter's height against the wall) and he is circumcised. Moreover, dental examination offers contradictory facts, and the boy can't remember his teacher's name or his regular seat at the classroom.
Nonetheless, despite her immediate and repeated declarations that the boy is not hers, Collins is rebuffed by Captain J. J. Jones, the officer in charge of the case. Christine is told—and that was recounted from the City Council hearing transcripts--to "try him for a couple of weeks."
However, from the first moment of reencountering the boy, her emotions are conflicted. In her inner heart, she knows that the boy is not her Walter and yet told that he is poor and homeless, she's expected to take care of him. In one wonderfully acted scene, Christine runs the gamut of emotions of torturing and screaming at the boy that he's a damn liar to moment later going to his bedroom and comforting him, letting the better side of her—and her inherent maternal instincts—take over.
While pressuring the authorities to keep looking for her real son, Christine learns some realities about the position of women in Prohibition-era Los Angeles, particularly single women of the lower classes. And it is in these chapters, that the real dramatic conflicts begin to unfold. Women are not supposed to challenge the system and its mainstream institutions. Like other femme (and minorities), Christine is subject to profiling and rigid stereotyping: She is slandered as unfit mother, deviant sexually loose woman, delusional paranoid, who lies to the press.
Needing support, Christine finds an ally in Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), a community activist who helps her to fight the city authorities in looking for her missing son. Unfazed, the Reverend mobilizes action, orchestrates public demonstrations, and later on helps storm the asylum where Christine is illegally incarcerated.
Eastwood and his scenarist are excellent at showing both the workings (and corruption) of the police department and the political machine, the welfare agencies, all forces that continue to question Christine's sanity. And they don't neglect the public's thirst for sensationalism on the one hand and the masses' eagerness for happy (fairy-tale like) endings to problems on the other. Closure—any kind of closure--is far more important than whether or not Walter is Christine's son.
Bridging the personal and the political domains, the filmmakers place the case against the broader context of Los Angeles in its formative era, during years of personal and public scandals, such as the kidnapping of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in 1926. Polanski's seminal noir, "Chinatown," about city corruption vis-à-vis real estate and water supply is set a few years later, in the early Depression.
Back in 1928, L.A. was in the grips of a despotic political infrastructure, led by Mayor George E. Cryer and enforced by Police Chief James E. "Two Guns" Davis (often photographed in a gunslinger pose with his weapons) and his sanctioned gun squad that terrorized the city at will. That despotic rule began to unravel with the Collins and other cases. After months of fruitless searching, the police had nothing to show, save an onslaught of negative publicity and mounting public pressure to find a solid lead in the kidnapping.
But what counts the most in "The Changeling" is the dramatic center: The gripping tale of a scandal and the emergence of a new type of heroine. Indeed, in her indefatigable search, and through dealing with various, insurmountable obstacles, Christine evolves into an unlikely, almost reluctant heroine, a spokesperson for the poor classes and downtrodden individuals who have been consistently and methodically abused, ignored, and swept aside by the police, political, and other authority machines.
In her one-woman quest, Chritsine joins a whole line of American working class heroines, such as Norma Rae (Sally Field), Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep), Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts), and most recently Charlize Theron as a coal miner activist in "North Country." Each of these women is an idiosyncratic individual in her own right, and I don't want to suggest that they represent the same type, only to suggest the notion of misfit, disenfranchised women who embark on a journey of self-discovery through which they commit themselves to the welfare of a larger cause than their personal problems. In this respect, "The Changeling" could have easily be retiteld or subtitled, "Christine Collins."
Thematically, "The Changeling" bears resemblance to Agniezska Holland's French film, "Olivier, Olivier," as well as Ben Affleck's "Gone Baby Gone," which also revolves around the missing of a young girl and the police role in the kidnapping. Linking those two pictures is the great Amy Ryan, who was nominated for an Oscar for playing the irresponsible mother in "Gone Baby Gone," and in "The Changeling" plays Carol Dexter, a fellow innocent prisoner, a tough, foul-mouthed but decent ****e who helps Christine during her lockdown in a mental ward. Rendering another bravura performance that nails the part in four or five scenes, Ryan deserves serious consideration for the Supporting Actress Oscar.
Just in case you thought is a solely femme-driven saga, the accomplished ensemble includes half a dozen fully developed male characters, such as Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), as the head of the LAPD Juvenile Investigation Unit assigned to find Walter, and Detective Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly), who plays the crucial role of the officer, who is the first to suggest a link between Walter's disappearance and another crime.
Other impressive roles include LAPD Police Chief James E. Davis (Colm Feore), the head of the corrupt department, and a serial killer, Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner), who may or may not have clues to Walter's vanishing.
This is getting amazing reviews from Cannes, hope we get a trailer soon.
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