Review: Changeling

Changeling is occasionally hard to get through, because of the heart-wrenching nature of the subject matter, but it's well worth the perseverance. Both a well-structured, fascinating story and a great (Oscar-nominated) performance by its lead actress reward the viewer's willingness to bear witness to a set of circumstances that no parent would ever wish on anyone.

I didn't know a whole lot about the film before watching it on DVD last night, and I think that's just about the perfect way to go into this (and therefore I won't spoil it - much! - for anyone else). Here's what I went in with: The screenplay is by J. Michael Straczynski (TV shows Babylon 5, Crusade and Jeremiah, along with comic series Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Rising Stars, The Twelve, etc.), the film is directed by Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Flags of Our Fathers, among others) and it stars Angelina Jolie in the lead role of a mother in the 1920s whose son goes missing. When the police tell the distraught woman a few months later that they've found her lost boy, she's overjoyed... until she sees him and declares that he's not her son! That's the setup, and you really shouldn't need anything else - except maybe a few tissues - to enjoy this very entertaining tale.

OK, I lied (a little bit). I'd also heard that JMS spent months researching the details of the true story upon which Changeling is based. He had hit the various archive locations in and around Los Angeles, and was struck by just how much information about the events was on record, nearly 80 years later. Again and again he came across news clippings or court transcripts that contained kernels of data that, had he made them up, no one would have believed could ever have happened. Having seen the film, I can say that it really is quite an amazing story!

Jolie is fabulous in the role of Christine Collins, to the point where I had to continually remind myself that it was actually her under that hat. She's given the daunting task of presenting a quiet strength as Christine goes about the thankless and frankly quite embarrassing chore of convincing people that this youngster isn't her son. Theories abound that she's an irresponsible single parent who enjoyed the freedom that his disappearance gave her, or that she's psychologically unequipped to deal with the changes that several months of unknown experiences have wrought on the young boy. Against all of that, Jolie is superb in her ability to convey true anguish without tearing up the scenery or losing track of her own need to be persuasive in the process. It could so easily have gone off the rails, and it's a testament to Jolie, Eastwood and Straczynski that it instead worked beautifully.

There are a lot of tear-jerking scenes in the film, and I can easily imagine that it was probably a tough script for Straczynski to write. But one moment in particular practically took my breath away. A child was recounting an especially poignant series of events to a hard-boiled, initially-disinterested police detective, and for several minutes we're shown what he's describing in the form of a flashback. As the boy finishes his tale, we're brought back to "present day" (actually, 1928) by way of a shot of the detective's previously-lit cigarette... now just one long ash, still held between his fingers as they rest on the tabletop, indicating that he hadn't moved one inch while the youngster spoke. That shot perfectly sets up the follow-up that shows the look of sheer horror and disbelief that's now etched across the face of the man who thought he'd seen and heard it all by that point. I'm sure the "long cigarette ash shot" has been done before in cinema, but perhaps never as effectively as it was in this graphic context, representing, as it does, one of the major turning points in the story.

JMS also stuck in what I assume has to have been a conscious tip-of-the-hat to Alan Moore's V For Vendetta comic series, as it exactly echoed Evey's final moments of captivity and signaled loud and clear that her transformation out of victimhood was complete (and serves the same purpose here in Changeling).

This is a very strong film that probably didn't get as much attention as it deserved when it made the theatre rounds.

Rating: ****

Review: Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In is one of the oddest films I've seen in a while, but also one of the most interesting. After watching it last night, my entire dream cycle was occupied with variations upon what I'd just experienced, and it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning.

I'd never heard of this Swedish film (based on a Swedish best-selling novel) until my daughter Tammy gave me a copy on DVD last month for my birthday. She wanted to see it with us, and so it took nearly a month before we had an opportunity where all three of us - including Vicki - were together and in the mood for a vampire movie. As it turns out, Let the Right One In is unlike any other vampire flick I've ever seen. The closest comparison I can draw, and it's not a particularly good one, would be how I felt when I watched Salem's Lot on TV in 1979 (as a 16 year old). At that point in my life, I thought that I pretty much knew what to expect from vampire fiction (having read Bram Stoker's Dracula, dozens of Dracula comics, and seen many schlocky vampire movies), and yet that quirky TV event threw me for a loop. While the quality may not have been all that high, it definitely made an impression on me and opened my mind up to just how much more potential existed in that sub-genre than I'd imagined up to then.

In the case of Let the Right One In, I think the film-makers succeeded on both fronts: delivering superior craftsmanship, and expanding the range of vampire lore. It's all presented in a way that expects the audience to figure things out, rather than having it all delivered at the end of a spoon. Many of the relationships shown have to be inferred, with the implication being that you may, of course, come to the wrong conclusions in some cases. Because so much is going on, and yet so little is being provided to the viewer in a paint-by-numbers fashion, I found myself drawn more and more into the story because I wanted to make the connections myself. That's always a sign of an outstanding work of fiction, in my mind.

One of the most fascinating reactions I had, as the event rolled along, was trying to decide whether I could really justify rooting for the bloodsucking co-lead. I realize that that sort of dilemma is at the heart of much of the recent and current Nosferatu-fic (Anne Rice's work, Twilight, and even Spike and Angel of the Buffyverse) but here it's done in such a matter-of-fact manner as to make those others look almost cartoonish, by comparison. There's drama in Let the Right One In, but no melodrama. "I live off blood," says the undead creature at one key juncture, neither apologetically nor with any sense of pride. In order for her to live, others have to die. (And, in fact, if she doesn't kill them after feeding, she simply ends up making more like her! Therefore, is her act of murder actually one of compassion?)

At the center of the story is a 12 year old boy named Oskar, who's being bullied at school while the adults around him remain oblivious to it. He befriends a new neighbour named Eli, who describes herself as being "around 12." As we learn later on, she means that she was 12 when she was turned into a vampire and has been "around" - frozen at that physical age, though it's difficult throughout to get a good read on her emotional development - for an indeterminate number of years, decades or even centuries since. She knows all about sticking up for herself, and is therefore just the right type of person for Oskar to meet at that "coming-of-age" point in his young, beleaguered life. Except, of course, that she's exhibiting her "right to survive" by killing people in Oskar's town and thereby casting a pall of terror over the region. What's a 12 year old boy, experiencing love for the first time, expected to do in a head-scratching situation like that?

It took me a while to warm up to the film, as I spent the first 15 or 20 minutes bothered by some of the directorial choices. Some scenes are maddeningly-framed such that it's hard to even tell who's speaking, but eventually you either get used to that or come to realize why it's being done. It also didn't help that the DVD defaulted to "English dubbing," which featured some of the worst voice acting this side of a 1950s Godzilla groaner. Fortunately my brain eventually unfroze and I realized that I had the technology to switch us to the original Swedish audio track with English subtitles, after which the experience was exceedingly more pleasant. By the halfway point, I'd decided that I liked what I was seeing. By the end, I thought that I might just have loved it. I'll probably have to watch it a second time, in a year or two, to really know for sure. It's definitely worth watching, though, and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for something a little different than the standard fare.

Rating: *** 1/2