"Changeling": The Review
Dec. 13th, 2008 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaAs mentioned, here is my review of Changeling.
***Obligatory Spoiler Warning***
This entry may contains spoilers of a film currently showing in theaters... don't say I didn't warn you!
As most of my friends, readers, lurkers, voyeurs know; if there's something I love, it's pop-culture. If there's something I absolutely adore, it's pop-culture done right!
"Changeling" is a big Hollywood production. It's a Clint Eastwood film, the screenplay is by J. Michael Straczynski, yes Babylon 5's Straczynski. All great pluses in my mind.
I went to the film without any big expectations other than to be entertained, which I most certainly was, but really, my inner analyst was having a field day with this film and that really has very little to so with who wrote and/or directed it.
It is a movie primarily about identity, in the broadest sense of the word.
In the movie, Christine Collins (Angelina Joelie's character) goes through an identity crisis, not through any kind of mental break down or some kind of inner battle that's raging through her and decimating her life.
She experiences this because the various authoritarian establishments tell her that who she is and what she thinks are wrong.
Wrong, due to the fact that she insists that she is right.
This kind of dissidence, the authorities cannot accept or abide. And thus do their best, through their great, insidious and invidious influence (for what is more far reaching than the police, the medical profession and the media all cooperating) to shut her up.
The film reminded me a lot of North by Northwest because of it's dealing with identities and how your identity is molded, changed and established by forces that affect you from outside ourselves.
Christine knows, is convinced, not through motherly intuition or some metaphysical connection, but through hard facts, that the boy the police find isn't her son.
The police and their authoritative accomplices, the mental health institution, use exactly those tactics that Christine disproves (intuition, "maternal instincts") to show that she is shirking her responsibility as a mother, that she is being difficult, hysterical and has no control over her faculties because she "doesn't recognize her own son", despite the fact that the authorities tell her that it is her son over and over again.
What's really brilliant, is the way mental health, femininity and masculinity are portrayed.
The arbitrariness of mental health is disturbing - a dissident voice is by default crazy, anything that is "anti-social" must be corrected and the police and the mental health institution (i.e. The Authority) are the ones who decide what is and what isn't "anti-social" behaviour and brutally enforce these decisions.
Women (i.e. Femininity), that aren't completely subservient to The Authority (which in this movie are easily conflated with Patriarchy) are shuttered away and given medication and electroshock therapy to shut them up and not do anything to disrupt the flow of Power.
The trend in Hollywood today is to show men (i.e. Masculinity) who do not manage to retain the control they believe they have due to their masculinity. The police captain, JJ Jones (played brilliantly by Jeffrey Donovan), cannot accept the fact that he made a mistake. The mistake must be in Christine, who dares to defy his authority as a policeman and as a man. He must quite this voice that is cracking his facade as a powerful man in a powerful position.
His own identity is solidified by his creating a crisis in Christine's.
The power play between them is amazing. Every time they are in a scene together, the atmosphere crackles with tension and energy, not sexual (thank god!), but an honest and true struggle for dominance over the discourse of which Identity is Real.
The film plays, very subtly, with the arbitrariness of mental health and to a degree, as stated, with gender conformity - though not with the spectrum of "feminine - masculine", but more with what is acceptable femininity and what is acceptable masculinity, which we see twisted in the character of the murderer Arthur Hutchins (played by the very creepy Devon Conti).
What else is great about this movie, on a purely "Yay!" degree is how feminist it is. Beyond the gender play (which, granted, maybe only a person who looks for this stuff would actually find) the main character is a Working-Single-Mother who goes against agents of Patriarchy and wins without being rescued by The Love Interest - there is no romance plot in this movie, which I really appreciate.
On a purely aesthetic level, it was a bit... eh. I didn't really like the colours. The music was subtle to non-existent and the editing was a bit sketchy, but really the content, acting and sheer intensity of what was going on really made up for all that.
Not to mention that great 1920's to 1930's mens suits that I was drooling over - Fedoras and Braces and Waist Coats Oh My! *fans self*
And the women's hats! So freakin' awesome!
I hope it's nominated and wins best costumes at the Academy Awards.
And seriously, you can't beat a well tailored suit.
Or story.
This entry may contains spoilers of a film currently showing in theaters... don't say I didn't warn you!
As most of my friends, readers, lurkers, voyeurs know; if there's something I love, it's pop-culture. If there's something I absolutely adore, it's pop-culture done right!
"Changeling" is a big Hollywood production. It's a Clint Eastwood film, the screenplay is by J. Michael Straczynski, yes Babylon 5's Straczynski. All great pluses in my mind.
I went to the film without any big expectations other than to be entertained, which I most certainly was, but really, my inner analyst was having a field day with this film and that really has very little to so with who wrote and/or directed it.
It is a movie primarily about identity, in the broadest sense of the word.
In the movie, Christine Collins (Angelina Joelie's character) goes through an identity crisis, not through any kind of mental break down or some kind of inner battle that's raging through her and decimating her life.
She experiences this because the various authoritarian establishments tell her that who she is and what she thinks are wrong.
Wrong, due to the fact that she insists that she is right.
This kind of dissidence, the authorities cannot accept or abide. And thus do their best, through their great, insidious and invidious influence (for what is more far reaching than the police, the medical profession and the media all cooperating) to shut her up.
The film reminded me a lot of North by Northwest because of it's dealing with identities and how your identity is molded, changed and established by forces that affect you from outside ourselves.
Christine knows, is convinced, not through motherly intuition or some metaphysical connection, but through hard facts, that the boy the police find isn't her son.
The police and their authoritative accomplices, the mental health institution, use exactly those tactics that Christine disproves (intuition, "maternal instincts") to show that she is shirking her responsibility as a mother, that she is being difficult, hysterical and has no control over her faculties because she "doesn't recognize her own son", despite the fact that the authorities tell her that it is her son over and over again.
What's really brilliant, is the way mental health, femininity and masculinity are portrayed.
The arbitrariness of mental health is disturbing - a dissident voice is by default crazy, anything that is "anti-social" must be corrected and the police and the mental health institution (i.e. The Authority) are the ones who decide what is and what isn't "anti-social" behaviour and brutally enforce these decisions.
Women (i.e. Femininity), that aren't completely subservient to The Authority (which in this movie are easily conflated with Patriarchy) are shuttered away and given medication and electroshock therapy to shut them up and not do anything to disrupt the flow of Power.
The trend in Hollywood today is to show men (i.e. Masculinity) who do not manage to retain the control they believe they have due to their masculinity. The police captain, JJ Jones (played brilliantly by Jeffrey Donovan), cannot accept the fact that he made a mistake. The mistake must be in Christine, who dares to defy his authority as a policeman and as a man. He must quite this voice that is cracking his facade as a powerful man in a powerful position.
His own identity is solidified by his creating a crisis in Christine's.
The power play between them is amazing. Every time they are in a scene together, the atmosphere crackles with tension and energy, not sexual (thank god!), but an honest and true struggle for dominance over the discourse of which Identity is Real.
The film plays, very subtly, with the arbitrariness of mental health and to a degree, as stated, with gender conformity - though not with the spectrum of "feminine - masculine", but more with what is acceptable femininity and what is acceptable masculinity, which we see twisted in the character of the murderer Arthur Hutchins (played by the very creepy Devon Conti).
What else is great about this movie, on a purely "Yay!" degree is how feminist it is. Beyond the gender play (which, granted, maybe only a person who looks for this stuff would actually find) the main character is a Working-Single-Mother who goes against agents of Patriarchy and wins without being rescued by The Love Interest - there is no romance plot in this movie, which I really appreciate.
On a purely aesthetic level, it was a bit... eh. I didn't really like the colours. The music was subtle to non-existent and the editing was a bit sketchy, but really the content, acting and sheer intensity of what was going on really made up for all that.
Not to mention that great 1920's to 1930's mens suits that I was drooling over - Fedoras and Braces and Waist Coats Oh My! *fans self*
And the women's hats! So freakin' awesome!
I hope it's nominated and wins best costumes at the Academy Awards.
And seriously, you can't beat a well tailored suit.
Or story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-13 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-13 08:43 pm (UTC)Go and enjoy! I hope you review, I'd really like to hear what others think of it.
I'm currently having a discussion on another LJ about the film if you're interested (http://sabrina-il.livejournal.com/659196.html).
no subject
Date: 2008-12-13 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 06:28 am (UTC)