CLINT
EASTWOOD (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven, Letters
from Iwo Jima) directs ANGELINA JOLIE (The Good Shepherd;
A Mighty Heart; Girl, Interrupted) and JOHN MALKOVICH
(Dangerous Liaisons, Beowulf, Burn After Reading)
in an emotional and provocative drama based on actual events that
forever transformed the city of Los Angeles. Changeling tells
the story of one woman whose invincible spirit and refusal to
surrender brought down a corrupt police department and ushered in a
new era of dignity and equality under the law.
Los
Angeles, March 1928: On a beautiful Saturday morning in a
working-class suburb, single mother Christine Collins (Oscar®
winner Angelina Jolie) says goodbye to her nine-year-old son, Walter,
and leaves for her job as a telephone operator. But when Christine
returns to their modest home, she is confronted with every parent’s
worst nightmare: Her son has vanished.
An
exhaustive and fruitless search ensues, but Walter has disappeared
without a trace…until five months later, when a child—claiming
to be her boy—is returned by police who are eager to bask in the
public-relations coup of reuniting mother and child. Dazed by the
swirl of cops, reporters, photographers and her own conflicted
emotions, Christine is persuaded to take the boy home. But in her
heart, she knows he is not Walter.
As
she pushes authorities to keep looking for her real son,
Christine learns that in Prohibition-era L.A., women don’t
challenge the system and live to tell their story. Slandered as
delusional and unfit, she finds an ally in community activist
Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who helps her fight the
city to look for her missing boy.
Facing
corrupt police who question her sanity and a skeptical public hungry
for a fairy-tale ending, Christine desperately hunts for answers.
As she searches, she becomes an unlikely heroine for the poor and
downtrodden who have been systematically abused and swept aside by
the police state that has gripped L.A. Now,
one woman’s quest won’t stop until she finds her son…unless
those assigned to protect and serve silence her for good.
Directors Guild of America
Theater #1
7920 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Parking available in underground garage