Changeling (2008)

Changeling’s villain is a police captain who keeps calmly telling a mother she doesn’t recognize her own child, and the movie makes you want to reach through the screen. Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins with tight, buttoned-up fury, a 1928 working mom who refuses to accept the boy the LAPD hands her. Jeffrey Donovan makes Captain Jones smug enough to be a cartoon, which is the problem: the bad guys are so obvious that the drama has nowhere to grow. At 141 minutes it also juggles too many stories, from a corruption scandal to a psychiatric ward to a city hearing and a criminal trial. John Malkovich is a welcome jolt as the radio preacher who takes her side. The period detail is gorgeous, all streetcars and switchboards, and it never gets graphic about the real case at its center. It made $113.4 million worldwide on a reported $55M. A 7.0 because Jolie’s persistence carries a script that keeps adding chapters. $5,636 says Christine Collins goes straight onto your personal list of real-life heroes before the credits end.

What works: Angelina Jolie’s determined performance and the detailed 1920s Los Angeles setting make this true story gripping.

What doesn’t: The villains are drawn with no shading at all, and at 141 minutes the film piles on more storylines than it can carry.

Who it’s for: Viewers who like true-story dramas about one person standing up to a powerful system and refusing to back down.