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Changeling
Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, her quest for truth exposes a world of corruption.
2008 · Directed by Clint Eastwood · 142 min · Crime · Drama · Mystery · Screenplay in the scene database · 10 frames
Tagline
To find her son, she did what no one else dared.
Plot
In 1928 Los Angeles, single mother Christine Collins returns home to find her 9-year-old son, Walter, missing. Reverend Gustav Briegleb publicizes Christine's plight and rails against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for incompetence, corruption and the extrajudicial punishment meted out by its "Gun Squad," led by Chief James E. Davis. Some five months later, the LAPD tells Christine that Walter has been found alive in Dekalb, Illinois, and organizes a reunion in Los Angeles in front of the press. Christine immediately realizes that the boy is not Walter. Captain J.J. Jones, the head of the LAPD's Juvenile Division, insists he is and pressures Christine into taking him home "on a trial basis."
Christine finds several physical characteristics proving the boy is not her son. Unlike Walter, he is circumcised and is about four inches shorter, in comparison to Walter’s growth chart. Jones produces a doctor who tells her that trauma has shrunk his spine, and whoever took Walter must have had him circumcised. Christine pleads with Jones to continue the search for Walter, but he chastises her and suggests that she is pretending the boy is not Walter so that she can be free of her parental responsibilities.
A newspaper story later implies that Christine is an unfit mother; Briegleb says it was planted by police to discredit her. Walter's teacher and dentist both sign letters asserting that the boy is not Walter. When Christine tells her story to the press, Jones has her committed to Los Angeles County Hospital's psychiatric ward. Inmate Carol tells Christine she is one of several women sent there for challenging police authority. Dr. Jonathan Steele diagnoses Christine as delusional, forces her to take medication, and says he will only release her if she signs an admission that she was mistaken about Walter's identity.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: J. Michael Straczynski
- Cinematography: Tom Stern
- Edited by: Joel Cox, Gary D. Roach
- Music: Clint Eastwood
- Production design: James J. Murakami
- Produced by: Ron Howard, Robert Lorenz, Brian Grazer, Clint Eastwood
Cast
- Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins
- John Malkovich as Rev. Gustav Briegleb
- Jeffrey Donovan as Captain J.J. Jones
- Michael Kelly as Detective Lester Ybarra
- Colm Feore as Chief James E. Davis
- Jason Butler Harner as Gordon Northcott
- Amy Ryan as Carol Dexter
- Geoff Pierson as S.S. Hahn
- Denis O'Hare as Dr. Jonathan Steele
- Frank Wood as Ben Harris
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Relativity Media, Malpaso Productions
- Budget: $55,000,000
- Box office: $113,400,000
- Themes: biography, based on true story, clergyman, child in peril, police corruption, los angeles, california, single mother, street urchin, missing child, mental asylum
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