Changeling (2008) on Netflix
In 1928 Los Angeles, Christine Collins comes home to find her son Walter gone. Five months later, police present a boy as Walter; she insists he is not her child.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.7/10276,607 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
Christine Collins works as a supervisor at a Los Angeles telephone exchange and raises her son Walter alone in Lincoln Heights. In March 1928 she comes home late from an overtime shift and finds him gone. She searches the neighborhood, then reports the disappearance, and is told to wait a day before filing a complaint. Five months pass. Captain J.J. Jones of the Juvenile Division announces that the boy has been found in DeKalb, Illinois, and stages a reunion with the press watching. Christine sees at once that the child is not Walter. Jones insists the five months have changed the boy's appearance and pressures her to take him home on a trial basis. When she keeps pressing for a search, Reverend Gustav Briegleb, who broadcasts against police corruption, takes an interest in her case.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Changeling (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Five actresses campaigned to play Christine Collins, among them Reese Witherspoon and Hilary Swank. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer suggested Angelina Jolie instead, and Clint Eastwood agreed because he thought her face suited the 1920s setting.
- Jason Butler Harner won the part of killer Gordon Stewart Northcott from a single taped audition. Casting director Ellen Chenoweth said Eastwood picked him over better-known actors because he could project a slight craziness without evoking Charles Manson.
- Straczynski said the only research mistake he made was a scene mentioning Scrabble, a game that did not reach the market until two years after the period shown, so he swapped the reference for a crossword puzzle.
SPOILER
The cut shown at Cannes simply faded to black as Collins walked away. Visual effects supervisor Michael Owens thought that pulled viewers out too fast and added a new 4,000-frame closing shot afterwards.- Christine Collins's ordeal changed California law: the state legislature later banned police from committing a person to a psychiatric facility without a warrant.
- The murders left such a stain on the town of Wineville, California that in 1930 its residents changed the place's name to Mira Loma to shake off the notoriety.
