True crime turned into a film. By Clint Eastwood. That would get my attention. Changeling is based on the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, a horrifying series of murders way back in 1930 in Los Angeles. I had planned to half-watch the movie while doing something else, but that didn’t work out. I had to watch it full time.
So Angelina Jolie, whose blood red lipstick distracted me all movie long, comes home from work one evening to find her 9-year-old son… gone. Not a trace of him nowhere. She goes to the LAPD, who are less than helpful. Her son is still pretty much gone. The LAPD look for him but bring back someone who she soon realizes ins’t her son at all. He’s even 3 whole inches shorter. But the LAPD is having none of it. As Christine Collins’ search for her sonbecoems more public and embarassing for the police, they clap her into a mental hospital.
Now’s the part that makes me cringe. Having worked as a bit of a psychologist at a psuchiatry department some time ago, I hate it when the healthcare profession is portayed in films as evil. But this mental hsoptial had Nurse Rachets on steriods! Of course, it is about 80 years ago, so it couldn’t have shown any different. Still, I can’t help thinking of how much it would just reinforce mistrust and lack of understanding in this country.
I won’t give away any more of this absorbing movie. It took me a while to get used to Jolie’s acting here, which they say was aimed squarely at the big prize. I expected panic and franticity, but I think that was not what was intended.
The New York Times review of Changeling and one from The Guardian. Also the wiki on the Wineville muders.
Very compelling review. You revealed just enough to lure me in. Even though I am annoyingly distracted by Angelina Jolie’s puffy lips, even w/o the red lipstick (obviously collagened-up, or is it just me?) in all of her movies.