Clint Eastwood
Changeling

For a Few Dollars More, Inspector Callahan, Gunny... but are we sure that the man behind the direction of this latest masterpiece is the same who acted with an icy stare in the aforementioned films?

You have to admit it, when you think that good Clint has given his all, you think he can no longer outdo himself, that if he stopped making movies here it would be like a boxer retiring undefeated, he gets back to work, leaves Warner for Universal and brings out yet another, undeniable, incomparable film with the help, in production, of Richard Cunningham alias Ron Howard. He even wrote the soundtrack for this film. It might not be Morricone or Zimmer, but I must say that the underlying theme that accompanies the entire film perfectly dresses this work.

The cast of the film isn't as high-profile as the previous Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby; excluding the beautiful, but this time especially talented, Angelina Jolie and a surprising John Malkovich, the actors present in the film are not very famous to the general public except as character actors in some TV series or minor appearances in other films: Michael Kelly, Colm Feore, and Jeffrey Donovan just to name a few. It is Donovan in this film who reinterprets the stereotype of the "corrupt" character, a role he has already played multiple times.

The reconstruction of Los Angeles in '28 is also very realistic, and the work done by the set designers perfectly reflects that meticulous attention of Eastwood in the pursuit of perfection that is typical of all his recent works.

Let's get to the film. The story is based on real events that occurred in 1928. We are in Los Angeles in the middle of Prohibition, and the police, which should guarantee order and justice, is instead a means of terror for women and children; the policemen replace judges with summary executions, and more often than not are corrupt in the service of the criminal network. In this not-so-wholesome environment, there is Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother. Her son Walter is her entire life, to whom she explains that his father ran away the day of his birth, because along with the child, to the father was delivered a package called responsibility. The mother divides her attention between her son and her job at the telephone exchange. Precisely because of this job, she has to leave her son alone at home one Saturday morning. Upon returning from work, her son has disappeared, and thus begins the protagonist’s odyssey that, like a female Ulysses, finds herself having to fight against corrupt police forces, psychiatric hospitals, and imposter children. Helping her is only Reverend Gustav Briegleb (Malkovich), who has always maintained that the police are not the cure for the ills of the City of Angels, but the evil itself, from the frequencies of his radio.

Jolie is extremely credible, and finally abandons those characters that seemed to be her only roles like Lara Croft or Fox (Wanted). On the contrary, she revisits the highly believable psychopathic character from Girl, Interrupted that had earned her the statuette as Best Supporting Actress. Only in some points does the character, destroyed by pain, appear excessive, but this could be the result of the Italian dubbing. The only flaw, but not Jolie's, is that she is not paired with any secondary female character that can compete with her aesthetically.
Malkovich, after many villainous or psychotic characters, such as also the protagonist of Burn after reading, returns to play a good guy, who still has that charisma typical of almost all the interpretations of the former Steppenwolf.

As mentioned at the beginning, the film is a masterpiece, which will probably reap some Oscars for both the actors and the director; if one wants to find a flaw, it can be found in the film’s too manichean view of life. You are either good or bad.

Enjoy the film.