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Massawyrm is decidedly disappointed by CHANGELING!!
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
There’s this great old documentary called James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction in which, in addition to discussing his youth and predilection towards sneaking into girls houses and sniffing their panties, Ellroy talks about how he came about discovering his voice. Effectively, after writing a novel that was too long, he simply went back and struck just about every other word from the text. The result was a jarring, fever dream like style that he has become famous for – and that Brian Helgeland captured brilliantly in his adaptation of L.A. Confidential. Now imagine, if you will, someone writing a James Ellroy story without striking every other word from the text and you begin to get an idea of what it is to watch Clint Eastwood’s new film Changeling.
Changeling shares an awful lot in common with a classic Ellroy story. Set in 1928 in a burgeoning Los Angeles, the story deals with a terrible crime that leads to an even more heinous crime, and ultimately pulls back the curtain on police corruption and incompetence in the City of Angels. Based upon the horrific and unfortunately all too true Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, the film tries to wrap itself around a terrifying and very convoluted story that begins with a missing person case and ends up becoming a case of serial or mass murder. And as fascinating and enthralling a story as it is, it is tragically mishandled here with focus often put on the wrong elements and entire interesting patches of the real history erased for the sake of telling the story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie.)
Changeling’s biggest weakness is its first half – the rather peculiar case of a woman whose son goes missing only to be returned five months later by police. There’s just one snag. It’s not really her son. Rather than admitting their mistake, a press-besieged police force tries to convince the woman that she is losing her mind and is in fact wrong. What follows is a Kafkaesque nightmare as Collins beats her head against the wall of a corrupt bureaucracy. Trouble is that the film is quite clear about the mistake. What works about a Kafka style story like The Trial is the overwhelming feeling of mystery – the not knowing what the hell is going on around the character or why people are doing what they are doing. Not so here. You know exactly why the police are being such bastards, and if that weren’t enough, every person used to convince Collins and the public of her mental instability are portrayed with a heavy handed menace that becomes too much at times. Even the nurses in this film have grown mustaches to twirl as they seem to enjoy issuing such procedures as electroshock therapy.
Had the film played more with Collins state of mind, forcing the audience to question her sanity while good natured people surrounded her trying to help her recognize her own son, then the first half might have worked. Instead it is a frustrating series of sequences in which you want to reach into the film and smack the shit out of people for being so undeniably selfish and downright evil – made even more frustrating by the fact that our heroine is simply an average, every day person of mediocre intelligence. There is no watching her maneuver the bureaucracy, only watching her get swallowed up by it. And the overall experience is a sigh inducing hour and a half (or so) of aggravation. But the movie is two and a half hours.
The last hour gets much more interesting, salvaging the mess of the first half, but never actually saving it. This is where the film gets decidedly faster paced with two diverging story lines to follow. One is about Collins taking on the city and police corruption. The other is about the horrendous murder case that may or may not involve Collins’ son Walter. And this is the story where Eastwood feels more at home. The revelation of the murders, the taking on of city hall – it is at times James Ellroy while others Frank Capra. And that mix is interesting, fresh and a welcome relief from watching this poor woman get tortured over and over again. But as interesting as it is, Eastwood finds himself going back again and again to the well of the tireless mother looking for her son, the repetitive nature of which only weighs down the movie and dilutes the rather disturbing nature of the true story. It even goes so far as to delete a major character from the true story, the mother of the murderer who may or may not have had a hand in the killings herself. In a story so obsessed with the nature of motherhood, I was rather surprised to see them ignore this angle entirely, especially when so much of the film simply languishes and putters along.
But this is a Clint Eastwood film, meaning that no matter how meandering it is, the performances are exquisite, and this is no exception. Jolie, Malkovich, and Feore all give the performances you’ve come to expect from them. None of them are particularly stand outs in their long and illustrious careers, but each one is operating on par with their norm – that is to say better than most others on their best days. Jeffrey Donovan stands out here, even though his physical appearance and dress make him far too much of a dead ringer for Guy Pierce’s Sgt. Edmond Exley in a film that is already far too evocative of L.A. Confidential. He is just so downright despicable and sniveling without seeming cartoonishly dastardly. But best of all is relative unknown Jason Butler Harner’s turn as Gordon Northcott, who plays the man so disturbingly aloof and positively insane that it becomes the one truly fascinating thing to watch in this picture. Every time he’s on screen the film is as good as it gets, and his final moments in the film are so undeniably fucked up that they are something you have to see for yourself. It is a role that is a real career maker and I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of him in the near future.
Overall the film is something of a frustrating experience; a limp, often boring but well acted film with a story that you just know while watching it could be told so much better. It’s not like the source material needing sexing up at all. In truth they toned it down so they could put the focus upon the first part of the film rather than the second. Kafka without all the Kafka and Ellroy without all the Ellroy is just a movie without. And that is Changeling.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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...instead of slamming a movie for what it isnt, you explain in your opinion why and give specific examples of how it could've been better. Props.
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Loved the female on male rape scene.
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so do you think it's possible to tell a good story that focuses on someone who is powerless in a situation? or does it have to be someone who can "maneuver" and overcome the odds? or is this just a measure of how enjoyable it is to identify with this person?
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It sure is possible to tell stories about the powerless. That's what The Trial is all about and I LOVE that - but it gives us a lot more than powerlessness. It gives us mystery. Intrigue. This just gives us periods of powerlessness. It's like watching extended torture sequences. At some pint you realize that this person isn't getting out of the chair and it is just going to continue like this for a while. So you resign yourself to it.
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Sometimes no matter how well acted or directed or sumptuos to look at a movie if it doesn't have a vibe it can still leave you cold and this simply looks too brown and dour! I think Eastwood is a fucking cinema legend but this looks boring and foosty!
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Clint'll get the damn kids off his lawn in January!
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It was a really interesting idea, I mean, the whole idea that propaganda is more important than almost any battle in war is undeniably a fascinating hard truth to accept, but the movie was just somehow the most boring thing I've ever seen. I wish it weren't, because I respect the movie and everybody was clearly doing solid work, but it just put me to sleep.
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So fucking annoying. I can't stand Angelina.
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WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!!!!
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Much more convincing delivery. Mel can get that rage in his eyes by visualizing the Harvey Weinstein's face.
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I know people will still fall all over themselves over MILLION DOLLAR BABY, and maybe even MYSTIC RIVER, but when are we going to admit that the old guy is a far cry from the director who gave us UNFORGIVEN? His last great movie was A PERFECT WORLD. That was 1993, fifteen years ago.
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I study psychology and narrative so it's an interesting discussion for me. I'm not sure I would watch this from what you describe... identifying with a helpless character is painful even in small doses, numbing if it goes on and on
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I was disappointed as well, considering my age old handle and affinity for J. Michael Straczynski. However, I think the film tries in a way to show that second-class status on women in the day ("..people told me I was crazy to promote a female supervisor", etc.). It simply was not in her nature to be the kind of woman you or I would expect her to be. It is implicit in the film, but today's audiences just can't relate to her passivity.
Still, onsidering the buzz this script had last year, I wonder how much of the blame falls on Eastwood. Dialogue can be delivered in many ways, and unless the script said "Zombie nurse with dead eyes fastens shock electrodes", I'll blame Eastwood for the sinister nature of the police and hospital staff. -
Don't you think it would be a little hard to believe that a mother wouldn't recognize her own son who was only gone for five months?
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Plus there's this... www.latimesinteractive.com/advertising/changeling/Article_Pages/LadReturned.html
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Why can't all the main AICN reviewers write like this?
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In my opinion, almost all of the films he has directed have been like this review...eh...
Films like Midnight in the Garden of homos and Million Dollar Quadriplegic to me are films that have good things in them but are not great. There are only 2 exceptions in my view, Unforgiven which honestly lagged a little in the pacing and ironically, the Iwo Jima film that wasn't already done twice before.
His films to me seem to lack a knockout punch. They have moments where the audience feels greatness coming but the films just seem to flatline. To me, he will never recapture the glory of Kelly's Heroes, Dirty Harry, or the pilot at the end of Tarantula. -
Now I won't see it for sure. I HATE when screenwriters/directors create these horrible characters that serve no purpose but to make you hate them.
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...the best Michael Bay film, you ADD twits! (Except that abortion of a film "The Rookie" with Charlie Sheen! I'll give you credit that "The Rock" beats that.) "Pacing is all wrong--- waaaah!" Stick to your highly-edited, dumbed down, predictable formats then, kiddies. Let an artist like Eastwood work! Muw-hahahahaha!
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...it really looks like the only Eastwood film I'll actually sit through in a long long long time. But I have a feeling its gonna disappoint. I think its gonna be one of those movies that ends up being very soft compared to the hard tone of the trailer. What we saw in the trailer is probably the toughest shit in the whole movie. I dunno why I got that feeling
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Isn't this movie based on a true story or something? I mean, it might still be a bad movie, but shouldn't the source material be taken into consideration, or at least give the "Changeling" context? The film can still be awful, but is it also an awful screen adaptation of horrible real events that happened in the 20s/30s?
Although, it could be good. I dunno, I haven't seen it for myself....and neither have 99% of you. Still, persuasive review Massawyrm. -
"However: Angelina Jolie's star is apparently so incandescent that it blinded Eastwood to the story mechanics that have made his films so sound. Just as her stoplight lips dominate the poster for "Changeling" -- if one mistook it for a L'Oreal ad, one would be excused -- her outsize persona dwarfs whatever scant drama the movie has to offer. Which is weird, because the story of Jolie's character, Christine Collins, ought to have us riveted to the edge of our seats (if that is, in fact, possible).
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http://tinyurl.com/6onavf
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I'm surprised.
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A Massawyrm review. Nice.
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I got the same impression DANNY. It's probabl going to be Dirty Harry palling around with that chinese girl for 2 hours. Although there could be a righteous Taxi-Driverish ending which might be worth the price of an AM showing.
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That is a halloween must. Scary stuff. Changeling + George C. Scott = Good. Changeling - George C. Scott = poo
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"Lost" fans no what I'm talking about. This movie looks like 2 1/2 hours of that. No thanks.
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It looks like it crawls along at less than a snail's pace.
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liked the look of it, liked Jolie in it, liked the slow pace and liked Eastwood choices of direction. The "heroine" is not smart and falls into everyone's traps because that's what happened (even if it's excrutiating at times) it's not that kind of movie...and it's much more interesting for that. The second part coming so late in the story makes it more powerful. The movie is interesting for not taking obvious choices.
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"I could have made it better."
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