CHANGELING
RYAN: The Oscar season has officially been ushered in!
CAROLINE: Well, it happens every year around this time, and for me “Changeling” is the first real Oscar contender of the year. It stars one Angelina Jolie who you may have heard of.
RYAN: Let’s start there. She looks amazing, and her performance is fantastic.
CAROLINE: She’s so painfully thin though. It was almost hard to look at her in some scenes.
RYAN: I know, but she’s so good that I can almost guarantee she’ll be nominated for an Oscar. Apparently all she needs to do to get nominated is take a role wherein she’s admitted to an asylum. Hello, “Girl, Interrupted.”
CAROLINE: [laughs’ I thought she was great too, but for me, the movie was greater than she was. I was expecting an amazing performance from Angelina, but what I got was an amazing film overall. And for that, we can thank director Clint Eastwood.
RYAN: He is truly a master director. Obviously he’s a movie star in his own right too, but his last few films have all been Oscar worthy. And he’s so good at getting stellar performances from his leading ladies; case in point, Hilary Swank.
CAROLINE: I just love his style. It’s very deliberate. This movie’s a little slow, but it didn’t bother me because the pacing worked so well with the story. It’s so well shot and the story is incredible. He just has this inimitable style that screams for an Oscar every time.
RYAN: I totally agree, but I have to say that this isn’t a perfect film. I found it a little slow-moving, and very long. It’s also quite disturbing in parts and very sad, so you need to know that going in or it’ll catch you off guard.
CAROLINE: I didn’t know how intense it was going to be. But everyone in it is incredible. John Malkovich doesn’t have a huge part but he’s great as the preacher who supports Angelina’s character’s cause. There are lots of other actors you’ll recognize like the dude from “Burn Notice,” and the fabulous Amy Ryan who now stars on “The Office.”
RYAN: I have to give a special shout out to Jeffrey Donovan from “Burn Notice,” who plays the cop who commits Angelina to the asylum. I think he’s hot, even though he plays a major ass in this movie.
CAROLINE: I don’t really like him. Plus he has some weird accent or speech affect that I couldn’t put my finger on. It goes in and out throughout the movie, and at first I thought his character was supposed to be Irish. I’m still confused about it.
RYAN: Maybe it was his “America, late 1920s” accent.
CAROLINE: [laughs’ Could be. I liked very much how Angelina’s character got to roller skate around at her switchboard job.
RYAN: I read that she had to learn to roller skate in high heels, which is something the women did back then, and she struggled with it; but I think she did a fantastic job. The movie is just so well written and well performed, and the costumes are amazing. The period piece details are so well done that you really feel like it could have been shot back then with an HD camera.
CAROLINE: The colors are also kind of muted, so it’s not this bright Technicolor movie. It definitely makes it feel like you’re in another era. But be warned – parts of the movie are so heavy and dramatic that it’s hard to watch.
RYAN: One thing this movie made me think about was the heinous things that people are capable of doing. We as humans are capable of both such greatness and such evil it’s just disgusting. This movie is a true story too, which just makes it even more devastating.
CAROLINE: There were even a couple of scenes that reminded me of “Silence of the Lambs.” The movie went places I didn’t expect it to go. And then it made me wonder why I had never heard about this story. Maybe it happened too long ago.
RYAN: It definitely merits a film because it’s such a tragic story, which is revealed very slowly, almost like revealing layers. Bottom line?
CAROLINE: I loved this movie even more than I expected to. Halfway through it I leaned over to our friend Cosmo and said, “Oh my God, this movie is so good.” I just wasn’t expecting it to be so outstanding and so Oscar worthy. All I had heard about was Angelina over and over. It could, and probably will be, a nominee for Best Picture.
RYAN: I’d give it the same props but just as a caution to mothers, it’s very difficult to sit through. It’s also a little slow, and Clint probably could have cut it down a little bit in length. But overall, it’s excellent.