Review of Changeling (2008) by Dirtycash — 28 Jan 2011

Where to start? Jolie was miscast, but maybe they wanted to make an action flick when the project started, had her sign up, and by mistake started working of a script for a totally different movie. It might explain the title. Or what about the irritating self awareness of John Malkovich who'd you, at any point in the movie, expect to break the rule of the 'fourth wall', look smugly into a camera and tell the audience that he's really pleased with his performance so far. Story wise: horrible, unbelievable plot turns, starting right of the bat when a seemingly intelligent woman is given the wrong boy back, her supposed son, who disappeared a few months earlier. The boy is not her son, she takes him home anyway...

¤¤ Really? ¤¤ The story continuous with Jolie trying to explain to the world that the boy is an impostor who doesn't even match her son's height to which a dentist and a school teacher are willing to testify. Why family members, neighbors, school chums, the family physician, the baby sitter and E.T. the Extraterrestrial weren't asked to help resolve the obvious misconception on the part of the police, was conveniently left out of the tale completely. No, in stead of taking the boy into custody and resuming the search for the real son, the police keep pushing her into believing it actually is her son after which the woman finds herself in a poorly copied tale by Kafka. From this point on the movie reveals itself for what it was intended to be. An endless string of manipulative scenes drenched in an Oscar vinaigrette in both the melodramatic writing and the obnoxiously polished cinematography with a fetish-like attention to props. Some movies get Oscar nods, but this one actually nods back.