Angelina Jolie is a Cannes Changeling

She looks good! on her own. And nice to see her wearing pants and not-so-exposed for a change.

Universal will bow the film in the late fall, the prime season for serious “meaty” movies and Oscar contenders. With strong critical support and the right handling and marketing, “The Changeling” has a good chance to receive multiple Oscar nominations in the most important categories: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actress, and several Supporting Actors. (I realize this is only late May, but the same prediction was made in this column last year out of Cannes Fest for the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” and Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell”).

Before I begin my analysis, a word about the title and context of viewing Eastwood’s landmark movie. In French, the film is called “L’echange,” which translates into “The Exchange,” a better, more apt title than “The Changeling,” which brings connotations of the horror genre; the movie has its share of horrific moments but it certainly is not a horror flick.

It just happened that I saw “The Changeling” early in the morning, right after a late night screening of James Gray’s “Two Lovers,” which is also in the main competition. Eastwood’s work would have shone in any context, but coming after yet another disappointing film from Gray, the contrast was all the more striking (Yes, I know, Gray is much younger, and has made only four films, but he shows few signs of improvement as writer or director).

The new saga begins on a sunny Saturday morning in a modest home in a working class suburb of Los Angeles, when single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) says goodbye to her nine-year old son Walter, sending him to school, before she leaves for her job as a telephone operator. Hours later, when Christine returns home, she faces the worst nightmare any parent can experience: the vanishing of her son.

Walter has disappeared without a trace. The initial search for him proves fruitless. Devastated, Christine refuses to accept the new reality but begins to realize that Walter will never be found. However, when a boy claiming to be Walter was discovered in DeKalb, Illinois, Christine and the others involved in the search wait with bated breath. Letters and photos were exchanged, and the authorities believed the missing person case had been solved. Collins scrapped together the money to bring the boy home, and LAPD organized a very public photo-op reunion with the found child and anxious mother. Hoping to put a stop to the scrutiny surrounding their inability to solve this case (and others) and desperate for uplift from human-interest success to counter the string of corruption scandals, members of the department hope the reunion would spell public redemption for LAPD’s top brass.

Dazed and bewildered by the turns of events and swirl of cops, reporters, and photographers, Christine is persuaded to take the boy home. Confused and disoriented, she agrees, and the case presumably closed. Or did it? The “only” problem is that the child who arrived home was not Walter. Nonetheless, despite her immediate and repeated declarations that the boy is not hers, Collins is rebuffed by Captain J. J. Jones, the officer in charge of the case. Christine is told-and that was recounted from the City Council hearing transcripts–to “try him for a couple of weeks.”

However, from the first moment of reencountering the boy, her emotions are conflicted, and in her inner heart, she begins to suspect that the boy is not her Walter.

While pressuring the authorities to keep looking for her real son, Christine learns some realities about the position of women in Prohibition-era Los Angeles, particularly single women of the lower classes. And in is in these chapters, that the real dramatic conflicts begin to unfold. Women are not supposed to challenge the system and its mainstream institutions. Like other femme (and minorities), Christine is subject to profiling and rigid stereotyping: She is slandered as unfit, deviant, and delusional. Needing support, Christine finds an ally in Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), a community activist who helps her to fight the city authorities in looking for her missing son.

Eastwood and his scenarist are excellent at showing both the workings (and corruption) of the police department and the political machine, forces that continue to question Christine’s sanity, and the mass public’s thirst for sensationalism on the one hand and eagerness for happy (fairy-tale like) endings to problems on the other.

Bridging the personal and the political domains, the filmmakers place the case against the broader context of Los Angeles in its formative era, during years of personal and public scandals, such as the kidnapping of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in 1926. Polanski’s seminal noir, “Chinatown,” about city corruption vis-à-vis real estate and water supply is set a few years later, in the early Depression.

Back in 1928, L.A. was in the grips of a despotic political infrastructure, led by Mayor George E. Cryer and enforced by Police Chief James E. “Two Guns” Davis (often photographed in a gunslinger pose with his weapons) and his sanctioned gun squad that terrorized the city at will. That despotic rule began to unravel with the Collins and other cases. After months of fruitless searching, the police had nothing to show, save an onslaught of negative publicity and mounting public pressure to find a solid lead in the kidnapping.

But what counts the most in “The Changeling” is the dramatic center: The gripping tale of a scandal and the emergence of a new type of heroine. Indeed, in her indefatigable search, and through dealing with various, insurmountable obstacles, Christine evolves into an unlikely, almost reluctant heroine, a spokesperson for the poor classes and downtrodden individuals who have been consistently and methodically abused, ignored, and swept aside by the police, political, and other authority machines.

In her one-woman’s quest, Chritsine joins a whole line of American working class heroines, such as Norma Rae (Sally Field), Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep), Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts), and most recently Charlize Theron as a coal miner activist in “North Country.” Each of these women is an idiosyncratic individual in her own right, and I don’t want to suggest that they represent the same type, only to suggest the notion of misfit, disenfranchised women who embark on a journey of self-discovery through which they commit themselves to the welfare of a larger cause than their personal problems. In this respect, “The Changeling” could have easily be retiteld or subtitled, “Christine Collins.”

Thematically, “The Changeling” bears resemblance to Agniezska Holland’s French film, “Olivier, Olivier,” as well as Ben Affleck’s “Gone Baby Gone,” which also revolves around the missing of a young girl and the police role in the kidnapping. Linking those two pictures is the great Amy Ryan, who was nominated for an Oscar for playing the irresponsible mother in “Gone Baby Gone,” and in “The Changeling” plays Carol Dexter, a fellow innocent prisoner, who helps Christine during her lockdown in a mental ward.

Just in case you thought is a solely femme-driven saga, the accomplished ensemble includes half a dozen fully developed male characters, such as Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), as the head of the LAPD Juvenile Investigation Unit assigned to find Walter, and Detective Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly), who plays the crucial role of the officer, who is the first to suggest a link between Walter’s disappearance and another crime.

Other impressive roles include LAPD Police Chief James E. Davis (Colm Feore) the head of the corrupt department, and a serial killer, Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner), who may or may not have clues to Walter’s vanishing.

The mos beautiful woman in the world, no doubt about it!

She’s looking better & better each day. As an actress she’s so versatile. That’s why I love her. Not to forget her philantrophic works.

Thanks Jess0!

Bravo Angelina gorgeous as ever,love you beautiful lady.

Brad & Angelina’s Star-Studded Dinner
By Nancy Wilson and Peter Mikelbank

The Jolie-Pitts left their brood at home Monday night for a leisurely dinner on the Cotes d’Azur with Clint Eastwood and Mick Jagger.

Brad Pitt, 44, and Angelina Jolie, 32, joined their celebrity pals and about eight other guests – including Rush Hour director Brett Ratner – for an evening of bouillabaisse, grilled langouste (warm-water lobster) and white wine.

The group arrived at Restaurant Tetou in Golfe-Juan – about three miles from Cannes – at around 8:30 p.m. Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, 64, was the first to leave, and the whole party broke up around midnight.

“Angelina and Brad are adorable,” a waitress tells PEOPLE. “They are so in love. The whole table was super nice.”

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20201307,00.html

she looks stunningly beautiful

thanks JJ;)

The film’s title is The Exchange now, so Jared, you’ll have to stop with all the bad Changeling puns.

So happy it’s being well-received. Sounds like we’ll all have more awards red carpets in our futures. ;)

OMG!!! Angie looks stunning. So, so beautiful and radiant. Thank you so much Jared for the pics. And many thanks to those of who provided all the glowing reviews. Wow…the reviewers consider this her best role to date. Outstanding!!! Yayyyyyy! Can’t wait to see it.

Thanks Konnitiwa & Mr. & Mrs. Smith for the reviews. And thanks Belle for the People link. :)

Congratulations to Changeling, Clint, Angie and the rest of the crew.

Well-deserved praises from the critics.