Changeling is a 2008 American crime drama film directed, produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Straczynski. The story was based on actual events, specifically the 1928 Wineville Chicken Coop murders in Mira Loma, California. It stars Angelina Jolie as a woman "reunited" with a boy who was not her missing son. When she tries to demonstrate that to the police and city authorities, she is vilified as delusional, labeled as an unfit mother, and confined to a psychiatric ward. The film explores themes of child endangerment, female disempowerment, political corruption, and mistreatment of mental health patients.
Working in 1983 as a special correspondent for the now defunct TV-Cable Week magazine, Straczynski first learned the story of Christine Collins and her son from a Los Angeles City Hall contact. Over the ensuing years he kept researching the story but never felt he was ready to tackle it. Out of television writing for several years and known to be difficult to work with, he returned to researching and then finally writing the story in 2006. Almost all of the film's script was drawn from thousands of pages of documentation.Straczynski described 95% of the script as being drawn from around 6,000 pages of documentation. Ron Howard had intended to direct the film, but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. Howard and his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer produced Changeling alongside Malpaso Productions' Robert Lorenz and Eastwood. Universal Pictures financed and distributed the film.
Several actors campaigned for the leading role; ultimately, Eastwood decided that Jolie's face would suit the 1920s period setting. The film also stars Jeffrey Donovan, Jason Butler Harner, John Malkovich, Michael Kelly, and Amy Ryan. While some characters are composites, most are based on actual people. Principal photography, which began on October 15, 2007, and concluded a few weeks later in December, took place in Los Angeles and other locations in southern California. Actors and crew noted that Eastwood's low-key direction resulted in a calm set and short working days. In post production, scenes were supplemented with computer-generated skylines, backgrounds, vehicles, and people.
Changeling received critical acclaim at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2008. Additional festival screenings preceded a limited release in the United States on October 24, 2008, followed by a general release in North America on October 31, 2008; in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2008; and in Australia on February 5, 2009. Critical reaction was more mixed than at Cannes. While the acting and story were generally praised, the film's "conventional staging" and "lack of nuance" were criticized. Changeling earned $113.4 million in box-office revenue worldwide—of which $35.7 million came from the United States and Canada.
Changeling earned Jolie numerous award nominations including the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.
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.
Detective Lester Ybarra travels to a ranch in Wineville to deport 15-year-old Sanford Clark to Canada. Clark's uncle, Gordon Stewart Northcott, has fled. Clark tells Ybarra that Northcott forced him to help kidnap and murder about twenty young boys. He identifies Walter as one of them and digs up body parts. Briegleb secures Christine's release with a newspaper story naming Walter as a possible victim in the Wineville killings.
After questioning, the boy impersonating Walter admits that his real identity is Arthur Hutchens, a 12-year-old runaway from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He reveals that the LA police told him to lie about being Christine's son. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police captures Northcott in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Famed attorney Sammy "S.S." Hahn takes on Christine's case pro bono and secures the release of the other women whom the LAPD wanted to silence.
Christine, Hahn, and Briegleb arrive at Los Angeles City Hall for the city council's hearing, where crowds are protesting. The council concludes that Jones and Davis must be removed from duty and that extrajudicial internments by police must stop. The jury finds Northcott guilty of murder, and the court judge sentences him to death by hanging. In 1930, Northcott sends Christine a message saying that if she visits him, he will admit to killing Walter. When she visits, Northcott refuses to tell her. He is executed the next day.
In 1935, David Clay, assumed to have been one of those murdered, is found alive. He reveals that he was imprisoned with Walter and that Walter helped him escape. They became separated, and David does not know if Walter was recaptured, but Christine gains hope that he could still be alive.
Epilogue text states that Captain Jones was suspended, Chief Davis was demoted, and Mayor George Cryer did not run for re-election; that California made it illegal to commit people to psychiatric facilities based solely on the word of authorities; that Rev. Briegleb continued to use his radio show to expose police misconduct and political corruption; that Wineville changed its name to Mira Loma to escape the stigma of the murders; and that Christine Collins never stopped searching for her son.
Cast
Historical context
In 1926, 13-year-old Sanford Clark was taken from his home in Saskatchewan (with the permission of his mother and reluctant father) by his uncle, 19-year-old Gordon Stewart Northcott. Northcott took Clark to a ranch in Wineville, California, where he regularly beat and sexually abused the boy—until , when the police took Clark into custody after his sister, 19-year-old Jessie Clark, informed them of the situation. Clark revealed that he was forced to help Northcott and his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, in killing four young boys after Northcott had kidnapped and molested them. The police found no bodies at the ranch—Clark said they were dumped in the desert. However, Clark told police where the bodies had initially been buried on the Northcott property. Clark pointed out the initial burial location on the property and police discovered body parts, blood-stained axes and personal effects belonging to missing children. The Northcotts fled to Canada, but were arrested and extradited to the United States. Sarah Louise initially confessed to murdering Walter Collins, but she later retracted her statement which was rejected by the Judge; Gordon, who had confessed to killing four boys, did likewise.
Christine Collins (the mother of Walter Collins) was placed in Los Angeles County Hospital by Captain Jones. After her release, she sued the police department twice, winning the second lawsuit. Although Captain Jones was ordered to pay Collins $10,800, he never did. A city council welfare hearing recommended that Jones and Chief of Police James E. Davis leave their posts, but both were later reinstated. The California State Legislature later made it illegal for the police to commit someone to a psychiatric facility without a warrant. Northcott was convicted of the murders of Lewis Winslow (12), Nelson Winslow (10) and an unidentified Mexican boy; after his conviction, Northcott was reported to have admitted to up to 20 murders, though he later denied the claim. Northcott was executed by hanging in 1930 at the age of 23. Sarah Louise was convicted of Walter Collins' murder and was sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled after 12 years of incarceration. In 1930, the residents of Wineville changed the town's name to Mira Loma to escape the notoriety brought by the case.
Production
Development Several years before writing Changeling, television screenwriter and former journalist J. Michael Straczynski was contacted by a source at Los Angeles City Hall. The source told him that officials were planning to burn numerous archive documents, among them "something [Straczynski] should see". The source had discovered a transcript of the city council welfare hearings concerning Collins and the aftermath of her son's disappearance. Straczynski became fascinated with the case; he carried out some research and wrote a spec script titled The Strange Case of Christine Collins. Several studios and independent producers optioned the script, but it never found a buyer. Straczynski felt he lacked the time needed to devote to making the story work and only returned to the project following the cancellation of his television series Jeremiah in 2004. After 20 years as a screenwriter and producer for television, Straczynski felt he needed a break from the medium, so he spent a year researching the Collins case through archived criminal, county courthouse, city hall and city morgue records. He said he collected around 6,000 pages of documentation on Collins and the Wineville murders, (registration required for online access) before learning enough to "figure out how to tell it". He wrote the first draft of the new script in 11 days. Straczynski's agent passed the script to producer Jim Whitaker. He forwarded it to Ron Howard, who optioned it immediately.