- published: 29 Nov 2008
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Changeling is a 2008 American crime drama film, written by J. Michael Straczynski and directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood, that explores child endangerment, female disempowerment, political corruption, mistreatment of mental health patients, and the repercussions of violence. Based partly on real-life events – the 1928 "Wineville Chicken Coop" kidnapping and murder case in Los Angeles, California – the film stars Angelina Jolie as a woman supposedly reunited with a boy she immediately realizes is not her missing son. When, however, she tries to demonstrate this to the police and city authorities, she is vilified as delusional and an unfit mother.
Straczynski spent a year researching the story after hearing about the Wineville Chicken Coop case from a contact at Los Angeles City Hall. Almost all of the film's script was drawn from thousands of pages of documentation. His first draft became the shooting script and his first film screenplay to be produced. Ron Howard had meant to direct the film, but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. Instead, Howard and his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer produced Changeling alongside Malpaso Productions' Robert Lorenz and Eastwood. Universal Pictures financed and distributed the film.
Angelina Jolie Pitt (/dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE; née Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and has been cited as Hollywood's highest-paid actress. Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin' to Get Out (1982). Her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in a major film, Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).
Jolie's starring role as the video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) established her as a leading Hollywood actress. She continued her successful action-star career with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), and Salt (2010), and received critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Beginning in the 2010s, she expanded her career into directing, screenwriting, and producing, starting with the wartime dramas In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011) and Unbroken (2014). Her biggest commercial success came with the fantasy picture Maleficent (2014).