Changeling (2008)

Not to be confused with the 1980 George C. Scott haunted house thriller The Changeling, Clint Eastwood’s wrenching drama belongs in the category of ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’ Christine Collins (wonderfully portrayed by Angelina Jolie) is a fairly ordinary woman and devoted single mother bringing up a little boy named Walter (Gattlin Griffith) in the roaring 20’s. Of course, in that era single motherhood  wasn’t exactly looked up to, so Christine suffers some adversity from people who think she’s an unfit mom and that little Walter needs a father, but she pretty much keeps on keeping on until her son vanishes from their Los Angeles home.

Hours turn to days turnmonths, and Christine’s fear that she’ll never see her son again turns to abject terror and finally, despair. Then, a miracle (?), a boy matching Walter’s description turns up in another state and is handed over to Christine. But this boy is not her son. The LAPD desperately try to convince her that yes, this doppelganger is Walter, and she will adjust to his somewhat changed manner and appearance; but Christine knows better. And she finds an in fiery minister Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who is convinced that the Los Angeles Police Department is a corrupt organisation with a multitude of dirty secrets, But what are they hiding from Christine?

You can pretty much count on a film directed by Clint Eastwood to be good, and this movie is no exception. Changeling explores the extent of familial love between mother and son, in the midst of an epic instance of gaslighting of a confused but strong-willed woman. Christine becomes a stronger and stronger character throughout the film, but to the price of her innocence. Angelina Jolie does a great  job here, but I was also surprised by Jason Butler Harner’s inspired performance. I won’t tell you what Harner’s role in this story is for fear of spoiling it, but I will say he has a David Tennant-like flair for eccentricity and villainy (think Jessica Jones,) and proves that incorporating a spark of madness while flirting with being over-the-top is not necessarily a bad thing.

For most of it’s duration, Changeling is as immersive as a good page-turner. It only falters and seems a bit overlong in the last thirty minutes, when it wanders into standard courtroom drama territory. Regardless, it is surprisingly emotionally arresting and tragic, especially considering the lukewarm reviews it received.

    Changeling plays on the human fear of not being believed, of being thought crazy and incompetent. When the corrupt cops lock Christine in a mental institution for not heeding their words and keeping her mouth shut, a hospitalized prostitute with a proverbial heart of gold (Amy Ryan) tells Christine that women are naturally assumed to be a bit insane, irrational and unstable, and what’s to keep them from taking anything you say as a sign of unreliability and keeping you there forever? That’s the catch-22 Christine finds herself in- if she plays it safe and insists she’s well, the doctors will try to draw tell-tale signs of insanity out of her. If she stands by her story, she’s fucked. If she goes either way, she’s fucked. Unless she can be stronger than she’s ever been in her life and find a way to fight the corruption ensnaring her.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of boxing. At all. I don’t judge people who like it, but there you are. I just don’t see the appeal in big, sweaty, greased-up guys knocking the piss out of each other, having their remaining teeth flying every which way, and probably acquiring long-lasting brain damage at age thirty. Entertaining? Hell no. Erotic? No, it’s not that either.

So with boxing movies, and by extension all sports movies (football, baseball, basketball, etc.) I need a sort of human interest story to really capture my attention. Well, I can tell you if you’re looking for human drama, pathos, and an extra helping of tragedy,  Clint Eastwood Academy Award-winning film has that and more. There’s guilt, grief, denial, friendship, and major moral dilemmas. I mean big fucking moral dilemmas. The kind that keep you up at night.

Frankie Dunn (Actor/Director Eastwood) is a bit of a cranky old man and well-regarded boxing trainer who doesn’t train girls– period. This moral position doesn’t seem very well thought out- it’s less a legitimate position than a lunk-headed duh... I mean, girls wanting to box. Who’d have thunk it? Next they’ll be asking for equal pay and equal rights in all things.

So, being the kind of crank he is, he turns aspiring boxerette Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) away like a puppy in the rain. “There’s plenty of people who will train girls,” he says. But Maggie’s determined. She’s come from a trash family (when we later meet her selfish and spectacularly ungrateful mother (Margo Martindale) and sister (Riki Lindhome,) we see where she’s from, and why she wants to get out) and she believes that being trained by Frankie Dunn (who seems to have quite a reputation in the boxing world, despite slumming it in a tiny fighting hall) is the best way to get her where she’s going.

Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman) is just the janitor, but he’s inwardly wise and worldly in that quintessential Morgan Freeman (with a smooth as butter voice over and that great voice) and quietly observes the drama between Frankie and Maggie, occasionally sharing a barbed repartee with Frankie and giving him a gentle push in the right direction. Frankie’s heart is rendered stony with personal tragedy, including a long-time estrangement from his own daughter. Will he give Maggie the well-deserved training and fatherly input she needs?

One thing you can say about this movie is it does good by not saddling Maggie with an  unnecessary love interest, rightfully focusing on the paternal relationship between she and Eastwood. The two have good (platonic) chemistry as they somewhat predictably bond, but tragedy lurks just around the corner. I often felt Morgan Freeman was a bit too much of a catalyst to the events rather than a character in his own right.

The thing is, for the first thirty minutes or so I was planning to bitch that the development of the relationships in “Million Dollar Baby” were too trite and predictable (i.e. grumpy old trainer professes his hatred for girls’ boxing, grumpy old trainer is suckered in by girl boxer’s irrepressible enthusiasm, etc.) But then I realized that while these odd couple stories are not the most original premises in the world, they work. They’re compelling. Where would we be without the gruesome twosome in “Up,” or “Men in Black,” or to name a less known title, “Treacle Jr.” (one of my personal favorites?)

If you bawled out every movie that featured a progressing bond by two people who have nothing in common, you’d have no movies left. Which is why I figure, we need our well-worn story lines. To some extent. Because something can be derivative and original at the same time. Well, the acting here certainly can’t be faulted. Outstanding performances all around. Hilary Swank proved her merit as a thespian in “Boys Don’t Cry,” playing trans man Brandon Teena, and once again with tomboyish pluck she shows us why she’s one of the best in the business.

Clint Eastwood is wonderful- he possibly gives an even better performance in this than he does in “Gran Torino,” a top-notch movie in it’s own right. He’s not just a gun-toting Republican tough guy with dozens of Westerns to his name- he shows real range and finesse as a troubled old man who tries to build barriers around his heart and refuses to let himself care about anybody. Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. He plays a role we’ve come to expect from Freeman- wise and pensive, with sage advice for the other characters, and he does a fine job.

I didn’t cry at the end because someone had already spoiled the twist for me, but it might have really gotten to me had I not gone in knowing more or less how things were going to go down. I think the characters came off as a little one-note while watching it under a critical eye (Maggie in particular seeming a little too perfect at times,) but overall “Million Dollar Baby” is just a good, emotional, wonderfully acted drama about allowing yourself to legitimately give a shit about someone again- albeit with tear jerking results.

 

 

 

 

The Last House on the Left (2009)

The way I see it, the remake of “The Last House on the Left” is a very small premise stretched to fit a reasonably long running time, without the smarts that these kind of movies need to avoid being underwhelming. The build-up to the inevitable rape scene took forever, followed by a long and excessively gruesome rape and a monotonous series of revenge killings. The saving grace of the movie was the acting, which was better than you might expect. All the actors, Goldwyn, Paxton, Paul, and Co-. gave perfectly acceptable performances. The movie itself, however, was gory and exploitive without having much of a message or brain at all.

The plot is mind-bogglingly simple, but could have been effective in a smarter movie- John (Tony Goldwyn) and Emma (Monica Potter) take their attractive, all-American daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) into their summer house in the woods. John and Emma decide to have a nice candlelit dinner while Mari takes the car and meets a friend, Paige (Martha McIsaac.) Paige decides to procure some pot from a dodgy shoplifter (Spencer Treat Clark) and Mari reluctantly goes along with it, against her own better judgment.

They meet the guy at a remote cabin and are interrupted by a group of killers on the lam, who assault Mari and leave her for dead with a bullet in her back. Then the miscreants seek refuge from the storm in the home of Mari’s unassuming parents. Needless to say, the word gets out, and, well, let the bloodletting begin. “The Last House on the Left” stares into our hearts with blackened eyes and dares us to say we would do anything different- to protect our family, our pack, from unimaginable evil. However, its message ends there. Unless you have your heart set on seeing a brutal rape of a crying, pleading girl, you’re better off watching “Dead Man’s Shoes” for a thriller on the consequences of revenge.

The trouble with this movie is not just the gape-mouthed simplicity of the plot, but the fact that the ensuing revenge is almost cartoonish in execution. “You wanna know what I did to your daughter?” the ringleader of the thugs, Krug (Garret Dillahunt,) growls at a desperate husband and father. I think anyone is capable of revenge, so really, in all my cynicism, I am the perfect audience for this movie.

But without the integrity nor the insight to pull this one off, the movie rubs our faces in its grim vision like a dog in shit. I don’t know what it takes us for more, sadists or masochists. The choice for last scene ( a borderline ludicrous sequence involving a microwave oven used in a unconventional manner) shows us where the film’s heart really lies- not in redemption but in ugliness and brutality.

“Breaking Bad”‘s Aaron Paul is in it too, going on in in full creeper mode, and guess what? He’s good. He’s likely to ruin Jesse Pinkman for you for a while afterward, not that Jesse was any boy scout, mind you. They’re all good, but it’s all for naught.”The Last House on the Left” is like a hulking, simple-minded cousin who hugs you a little too close  and hard, and doesn’t seem to comprehend that you’re, y’know, family. You don’t want to decline his embrace in the spirit of kinship (or, in the case of LHOTL, you don’t want to harshly criticize the movie, in the spirit of trying to appreciate a well-acted horror film,) but like a lecherous hug from Mongo, there’s more ick than appeal.