First the public relations-challenged LAPD fails Christine, and blames her. As does the county mental facility where she is remanded. In Eastwood's Kafkaesque weepie, every man in Southern California shows contempt for the phone-company supervisor except a crusading minister (John Malkovich) and an attentive police detective (Michael Kelly), who in investigating an apparently unrelated case sees how it connects to Christine's.
If films were people, Changeling would have multiple-personality disorder. It opens as a 1930s-style potboiler, morphs into a '50s-era police corruption saga, briefly transforms into a '70s-type horror movie (bloody axes and all), and closes as a generic courtroom drama.
While components of Eastwood's film are excellent, in particular Kelly's quietly tenacious performance and the evocative period details, Changeling is a film of parts, not a unified whole. With its many tonal shifts and dangling subplots, J. Michael Straczynski's sprawling script is a problem. Jolie's performance is another.
Surely the loveliest, and one of the more talented, creatures ever to bound before the movie camera, Jolie is not the first star whose tabloid notoriety intrudes on the moviegoer's ability to view her in character. It is hard, very hard, to see her as someone other than the homewrecking, globetrotting, daddy-hating, Brad-loving, fertile Myrtle Mother Courage of the bedroom eyes and pillow lips.
During the early 1960s, the moviegoing public felt much the same way about Elizabeth Taylor, who in retrospect consistently turned in tremendous performances during that era. Perhaps in 40 years one will be able to appreciate Jolie's Christine without the interference of media static.
