Changeling (2008)
Changeling is a crime film which was directed by Clint Eastwood.
Plot Summary
The movie is set in Los Angeles in 1928. A single mother, Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), returns home to discover her nine-year-old son, Walter, is missing. A local minister publicizes Christine's predicament and publicly chastises the Los Angeles Police Department for its incompetence and corruption. Several months later, the police tell Christine that her son has been located. The police arrange a public reunion with Christine and "Walter", hoping to override the bad press they had been getting. Although "Walter" says he is Christine's son, she says he is not. Captain J. J. Jones (Donovan), the head of the LAPD's Juvenile Division, tells her the boy is Walter and insists that she take him home "on a trial basis".
Christine confronts the captain with physical differences between "Walter" and her son, and eventually calls a press conference to tell her story. The police arrange to have her committed in the local mental hospital where she meets other women who were imprisoned for challenging police authority.
Eventually, a detective uncovers a Canadian immigrant who tells that his cousin forced him to help in kidnapping and murdering approximately twenty children. He identifies Walter as one of the victims. The minister obtains Christine's release and "Walter" reveals that the police told him to lie about being Christine's son. The cousin is captured in Canada and brought to Los Angeles for trial. Christine has an attorney get a court to order that the women unfairly imprisoned by police be released from the mental hospital.
The cousin is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Christine is told the cousin is willing to admit killing Walter on condition that she meets him before his execution. However, when she meets him, he refuses to tell her whether or not he killed her son. He is hanged the next day.
In 1935, one of the boys who was assumed to have been killed turns up alive. He reveals that he and Walter and one other boy escaped, but were soon separated. He does not know whether Walter was recaptured, so Christine still has hopes that Walter is alive.
Cast
Angelina Jolie ... Christine Collins
Gattlin Griffith ... Walter Collins
Michael Kelly ... Detective Lester Ybarra
John Malkovich ... Rev. Gustav Briegleb
Colm Feore ... Chief James E. Davis
Jeffrey Donovan ... Capt. J.J. Jones
Jason Butler Harner ... Gordon Northcott
Eddie Alderson ... Sanford Clark