Changeling
Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by J. Michael Straczynski. With Angelina Jolie, Jeffrey Donovan, John Malkovich, Gattlin Griffith, Amy Ryan, and Colm Feore. (R)
Changeling, the new film from director Clint Eastwood, is based on a true story—the opening credits present it a little disingenuously as simply "a true story"—but it's a story so unbelievable that the film often plays out more as a psychological horror tale than an historical reenactment. The term Kafka-esque has been abused and over-used to the point of becoming a joke, but if ever a modern story deserved the epithet, it's this one, where a self-serving bureaucracy can mandate reality—and commit those who disagree to the asylum.
Christine Collins (here played by Angelina Jolie) is a single mother in 1928 Los Angeles, raising her son Walter and working as a switchboard manager for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph at a time when few women held the position. Called in to cover a shift on a day she planned to spend with her son, she leaves Walter at home, listening to his radio shows. When she returns, he's gone.
Weeks go by, then months. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich, in a very entertaining toupee), the social activist reverend of a local congregation, keeps her case in the public eye with his weekly sermon and radio address, where he also rains down fire and brimstone on the Los Angeles Police Department—at that time a wildly corrupt outfit best known for the "Gun Squad" that served as judge and executioner, tommy-gunning criminals in the streets.
Suddenly, police captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) announces that Walter has turned up in Illinois, and is bound for L.A. to be reunited with his mother. For the LAPD, it's a chance to get some good press, and they stage a public reunion at Union Station. One problem: Collins takes one look at the boy that gets off the train and announces that he's not her son. Still, she's enough of an emotional wreck at the moment that Jones is able to not only get her to pose for a picture for the papers, but also take the boy home "on a trial basis."
How the department ever thought such a bald plot would work is inconceivable—among other things, the returned "Walter" is three inches shorter than Collins' son—but Jones still seems surprised when she refuses to accept the situation. After she holds a press conference explaining the mix-up, Jones has her thrown into the psychopathic ward of L.A. General, where she meets a host of other women locked up on "Code 12" violations—essentially, ticking off a cop.
Wedged in among the shock treatments is a subplot about child murderer Gordon Northcott, played with a cartoonish abandon by Jason Butler Harner. He may or may not hold the clues to Walter's true history, but though his arrest helps get Collins sprung from the asylum, he's unwilling to give her more than vague hints about the fate of her boy.
Eastwood, who spent time in L.A. as a child, lovingly recreates the city, with its iconic streetcars and towering City Hall. His palette, framing, and sense of light so strongly recalls the paintings of Edward Hopper that at times one wonders if Eastwood is purposely paying homage to the painter's evocation of isolation. And Jolie, her saucer eyes looking out from beneath her cloche hat, her famous lips painted a shocking red, seems right at home in the era.
But for all the beauty of the film, and despite a compelling story, it frequently falls flat, due to its one-dimensional characterizations. Donovan's police captain is an especially frustrating example; though he's the main operator in the drama, his motives are never really clear, and he remains nothing more than a cardboard villain throughout, despite playing a far more nuanced role in the actual case. And at nearly two and a half hours, the film starts to wear as it keeps tacking on new information in the last 30 minutes—only to leave us wondering when the credits finally roll.
*
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Written and directed by Kevin Smith. With Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, Traci Lords, and Justin Long. (R)
Whenever I watch a Kevin Smith movie, I'm inevitably reminded of my high school friend Lew. He was a theater geek, I was an art nerd, and while most of our classmates were at parties we weren't told about, he and I would drive around town, smoking cigarettes and talking about what we imagined were edgy and important things. We probably used more expletives than we really needed. Eventually we grew up. Somehow, it feels like Smith never did.
His Zack and Miri Make a Porno—even the name is a juvenile stab at transgression—is so filled with the detritus of teenage life and an accompanying desire to shock with its lewdness that it quickly becomes as tiresome and predictable as most of his other films. It's saved from itself by some strong performances and a few truly funny gags, but it's like bailing out a yacht with a teacup.
The everywhere-these-days comedian Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express) is the slacker schlub Zack Brown, who works at the Pittsburgh coffee shop Bean and Gone so he can afford such personal items as the Fleshlight (don't ask). His long time roommate and best friend is Miri Linky, played by Elizabeth Banks, also onscreen these days as First Lady Laura Bush. Their relationship is a platonic one—they split the bills, she does the dishes—why, asks Zack, complicate it with sex?
But when their utilities are shut off the night before Thanksgiving, it's the first thing that comes to mind. Inspired by the gay porn star he's met at a 10-year high school reunion, Zack suggests he and Miri shoot a quick dirty movie and use the expected windfall profits to get out of debt. Presumably, shooting a skin flick with your best friend, copying it to a thousand DVDs, and finding people to buy it (all in time to pay your rent) is still easier than asking your boss for more hours.
Once she agrees to do it, the pair begin casting other actors and securing some financing. The former include actual porn stars Katie Morgan and Traci Lords as well as Smith regular Jason Mewes, stepping outside his "Jay" character; the latter comes from Zack's coworker Delaney (a scene-stealing Craig Robinson), who was saving for a flat screen TV he planned to buy that weekend. And yes, there are jokes about why Delaney, an African-American, is asked to work on a day called Black Friday.
After a setback forces them to scuttle their original idea—a sci-fi porno called Star Whores—the group sets up shop in the coffee shop, shooting after hours while Zack and Miri exchange the meaningful glances that let us know they might have real feelings for one another. Even though the setup is so blatant, when their moment before the camera finally comes, it's handled with a tenderness so heartfelt it feels like it belongs in another movie. And indeed, soon after comes a gross-out sight gag that harkens back to Smith's sex-with-a-corpse joke from Clerks.
Smith can be a funny writer, but as a director he's pretty terrible. Most of the jokes here are simply delivered by talking heads, and it's only Rogen and Banks who manage to inject it all with a bit of humanity. "Every movie needs an ending," says Delaney as the film begins its warm-hearted wrap up. The problem for Smith is that films also need all the parts that come before.
*
Rainer Simon Film Series: Till Eulenspiegel, The Woman and the Stranger
Directed by Rainer Simon.
Filmmaker Rainer Simon, who worked in the former East Germany, is one of those curious directors whose work was at once enormously popular with the public and disfavored by the state. While his works were winning awards at the Berlin Film Festival, they were being restricted or banned outright by the government.
The DEFA Film Library at UMass brings these works—three of them never before available to English-language audiences—to the area as part of their 2008 Filmmaker's Tour. Simon will be visiting Western Mass to introduce and discuss the final three films in the series; this week brings the first two of five screenings.
Till Eulenspiegel is a picaresque tale about the title character, a trickster figure from German folklore who uses his intellect and guile to survive by getting the better of rich landowners, priests and other figures of power. A cross between a flimflam artist and Robin Hood, his series of adventures leads him to become the jester at the court of the emperor, where he discovers that wit alone may not be enough to keep him alive.
Simon made the film in 1974, and while some parts seem dated (an exuberant sequence of action painting feels very much of its era), others are as relevant as ever. Once the film settles into describing life at court, it gives Till Eulenspiegel (played with a marvelous physicality by Winfried Glatzeder) no end of situations ripe for puncturing.
Simon made the award-winning The Woman and the Stranger 10 years later, but it tells a much more modern story about love and what we choose to believe for it. During World War I, German soldiers Karl and Richard are captured by the Russians. To pass the time during their confinement, Richard reminisces about his wife Anna—unwittingly kindling a love for her within Karl. When Karl manages to escape, he makes his way to Anna, pretending to be her husband. Though she knows it's a lie, she finds herself drawn to him nonetheless—something that proves troublesome when Richard suddenly returns.
Both films screen at 227 Herter Hall, UMass. Till Eulenspiegel screens Nov. 12; The Woman and the Stranger screens Nov. 13. Both start at 7 p.m."
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
