Standing Against the Tide: Changeling Review

Clint Eastwood needs a hug. He makes some of the most sure-footed films in American cinema, with memorable characters facing real problems. But if we trace his latter career work from Unforgiven to Mystic River to Million Dollar Baby to the two Iwo Jima films and Changeling, we find films of spectacular beauty and chasms of despair. His films seem to continually make the point that we are alone in the world, fighting a battle we cannot win against death. I am surprised he has not adapted any of Cormac McCarthy’s work since their outlooks seem to match each other so well. Eastwood comes across so sweet and cheerful in interviews that I am nearly always shocked by the violence and darkness of his films.

Eastwood’s recent work Changeling tells the true story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother in 1920’s Los Angeles. One day she returns from work and finds that her son Walter is missing. She begins to work with the Los Angeles police department and months later they say that they have found Walter. When Christine sees the boy, both she and the audience knows immediately that the boy standing before her is not her son, Walter. As she challenges the LAPD during one of their most corrupt eras, she fights against an organization that will do nearly anything to keep their image in the press in a positive light. The Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) befriends Christine and publicizes her plight. The LAPD retaliates by having Christine institutionalized for psychiatric reasons without any due process. As Christine continues her fight, the LAPD discovers a horrific series of crimes that take place in Wineville (near Riverside). These crimes are of such an evil and infamous nature, that the town of Wineville changes its name to Mira Loma. Christine’s story and the Wineville crimes may or may not be related.

Out-Dickensing Dickens: Slumdog Millionaire Review

I saw Slumdog Millionaire back in November and now that it just won several Golden Globes, I suppose I should write my review.

No one is ever going to fault director Danny Boyle for making boring films. His movies brim with energy while never flinching from the harshness of life. Boyle makes movies in the same vivacious stream as Baz Luhrmann and Martin Scorcese. All three directors make highly charged films shot with fervency, edited so that the pace never slows from a sprint, and that use music as another plot-driving device. Boyle’s latest film, Slumdog Millionaire is a Dickensian story of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), an orphan who grows up in the slums of Bombay (later Mumbai). The story follows Jamal, his brother Salim, and their fellow orphan Latika through three periods of their young lives. We meet Jamal as a contestant on the Indian version of the game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? As Jamal progresses through the questions, the show’s producers suspect that he is somehow cheating since they believe an uneducated slumdog could have no way of knowing the answers to all these questions. His interrogation by the local police inspector (Irrfan Khan, who gives another excellent performance after The Darjeeling Limited and A Mighty Heart) allows Jamal to tell the details of his hard life from his early youth to the time on the show, when he is eighteen and working as a tea-gofer at a telecommunications firm.