Changeling


The movie I saw was called Changeling. It is a Thriller/Drama directed by Clint Eastwood. I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5.


PLOT

In 1928, Christine Colins’ nine year old son was kidnapped one day. She said bye to him and dropped him off at school expecting to see him later, and went to work. When she returned home she found that her son was nowhere to be found. She then freaked out and called the police, who just told her not to worry and that they will start looking for him in 24 hours if he has not returned home. A few months later the police claimed to have found her son. She got her hopes up, but then they dropped suddenly, because it turned out that she was sure they had the wrong boy, that the boy the boy the police claimed was her’s, was not her son at all. Depressed, Christine Colins had to claim to all the press around her that this was her son, even though clearly to her he wasn’t, or the police would tell everyone she was crazy. Inviting this strange boy to her house, she notices a lot of things were different about this boy and it was not her son! She tried to tell the police that this boy is not her’s, but they continued to refuse to believe her. In those days, a women would not have much power to go up against the police force. Her disagreeing with them, leads her to some trouble.


ACTING

This movie featured Colm Feore, Jeffrey Donovan, John Malkovich, and Angelina Jolie. I thought the characters were all realistic, and all played their roles really well. The actors were all amazing and I really believed them. When they were getting mad, just talking, crying, or showing emotion it made me really believe that what they are going through was really happening to them! Apart from the good acting, the characters were stereotype. There is always the helpless woman who is strong and gets her point across at the end, the good cop, the bad cop, the victim and the villain in a movie. Even though the characters were stereotyped, it didn’t really matter because what is a Hollywood movie with out the stereotyped characters? Christine Colins (protagonist), to me, was well developed, you knew where she worked, what kind of person she was and a lot about her. The other characters weren’t as well developed, you didn’t know much about them, but it didn’t really matter because that’s what made them mysterious and worth watching.


SPECIAL EFFECTS, CINEMATOGRAPHY, MUSICAL SCORE, CAMERA SHOTS ETC

The technical aspects complemented the film well. The varying types of shots made it more interesting to watch, because there was a variety and not just plain, old boring, straight on shots. The special effects and the wardrobe really made it seem like the olden days and like you were actually in that time. Also the music made it that much more suspenseful and interesting to watch. To me, all of the technical aspects seemed well thought out because it seemed well researched. The part that really stood out for me, even though it was sort of disturbing, was when the guy was getting hanged. Even though I knew it wasn’t real, it looked completely authentic and made me believe it. Other times that I have watched a movie with a hanging scene in it didn’t look as real, either it looked like a dummy or they didn’t even show you when they were being hung. In this shot they showed the audience the legs and it looked real.


FINAL COMMENTS

In my opinion I think the readers should watch this movie. It was made realistic by both the actors and the special effects. There was no “fake” part in it. Besides the great actors and special effects, this movie had an awesome story board/plot. The plot wasn’t cliché and it kept making you want to watch it, and find out what is going to happen next! I think that this movie did not have much weakness but did have a lot of strengths. The weaknesses of this movie was that some of the events were unexpectedly disturbing, but I didn’t care because the movie was great and the special effects were exceedingly well done. The strengths of this movie was the acting, the setting, special effects and the plot…in my eyes I though the whole movie was amazing! I would refer this to people who don’t get grossed out by killing, torture and murderers. The type of people that would probably like this movie are people who like dramatic suspense movies and can handle disturbing facts. In my view and from experience, I would caution grown women that they would probably not like this movie, unless they like the violence and gore!