Changeling (2008) is an American drama movie based on a real story of Christine Collins, a single mother who loses her son in 1928. The movie is directed by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Straczynski.

On March 10th 1928 in Los Angeles while Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) is unexpectedly called into work, her nine-year-old son Walter goes missing. She puts her faith in the Los Angeles Police Department from whom she five months later receives news that her son has been found. Christine doesn’t identify the boy and but for the police it’s important to just look like they have found the missing child.

Christine speaks to press and starts to fight against the police and ends up being in the psychiatric hospital. She gets out of there with a help of a minister Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) who battles against police corruption. Christine believes that Walter is somewhere and decides never to give up finding him.

I would say Clint Eastwood cast the movie very well and many characters are strong. Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins I think is a perfect choice for the role because she does drama well and she can be emotional in front of the camera which was needed for the tough role. John Malkovich as Gustav Bliegleb has a smaller role but I think he managed in his role well and as a minister he had pretty funny way to speak. Other than Jolie and Malkovich, the performances are not that special even though many of the child actors were super cute.

Not only me but also the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences liked the movie – it received Oscar nominations from three different categories: Best Actress, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. I think the movie is a great story of justice and I’m sure it wakes people up thinking what the time was like in 1920s when corruption was on the air and the status of women was poor. I don’t think the movie would have been so believable if it hadn’t happened for real. I’d also say that the costumes really affected the movie’s believability in some way because they were just like at that time: straight and simple lines without any details.

At least Changeling affected me and made me think as a girl how cruel the world was before.