I went to a preview showing of Changeling that starts showing outside of the major cities this Friday. I had been interested since I found out J. Michael Straczynski wrote the script. I had been a fan since he wrote the scriptwriting columns for Writer's Digest, before Captain Power, even before Babylon 5. NPR has a piece on him, with their resident comics fans commenting. A good piece that reflects well on him and comics.
And that the movie is based on a true story of Christine Collins, who finds her son missing. Even though the LAPD refuses to get involved for the first 24 hours, when they do, and Collins uses her break time at work calling police departments across the country, 5 months later they say the child is found. Unfortunately, when she sees him, it doesn't look like him at all. And the reactions on both parties is too cold. Kathy was more affectionate when she woke me up this morning to take her to work, and she hadn't seen me since I left around 3:30 the previous afternoon. Of course, the police act like they had to make the bad PR disappear than any interest in solving the case, so her insistence that it isn't her son only makes them more determined to say that it is. Even with the assistance of a radio minister (John Malkovich) who rails against local corruption, she ends up being committed as a "code 12" at the mental institution, a woman who inconveniences the LAPD that they want to sweep under the rug. Meanwhile, a case involving a runaway Canadian boy found at a chicken farm and is about to be extradited takes a sinister turn...
This is a movie worth seeing. Even at almost 2 1/2 hours, the time just went by and I was in the theatre the whole time. If you're looking for a movie to see and Changeling is one of the choices, it's worth seeing. And I can imagine with the theme of women being marginalized being hit on in the movie from time to time, if it does win any major Oscar awards that at least one acceptance speech will hit on that again with a sledgehammer.
However, Massawyrm didn't like Changeling because it wasn't Kafka or Ellroy. That happens sometimes when you get an expectation of a movie and it turns out to be something else and it doesn't work out for you. But I can see some of where he's coming from. When I told Kathy about what the movie was about before I saw it, there was some question as to whether the returned boy was actually not her son, or if it was in her mind. I had to explain that that wasn't a path the film wasn't taking.