ChangelingMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 63 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    A disturbing film about grim subject matter, but the overall experience is more exhilarating than saddening. There's just something satisfying about seeing a movie so well made. Read full review

  • 100
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed, this true story-inspired drama begins small with the disappearance of a young boy, only to gradually fan out to become a comprehensive critique of the entire power structure of Los Angeles, circa 1928. Read full review

  • 90
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    In Changeling Eastwood continues to probe uncomfortable subjects to depict the individual and even existential struggle to do what is right. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Jolie, Malkovich and Geoff Pierson, as a lawyer who takes Collins' case before the Police Board, are very good at what they do very well. The film's most riveting performance is by Jason Butler Harner as the murderous Gordon Northcott. Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Jolie is inspired casting. She plays the role like a gathering storm, moving from terror to a fierce resolve. And Eastwood, at the peak of his artful powers, tightens the screws of suspense without ever forgetting where the heart of his film lies. Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    In other hands, these clashes of good and evil might have seemed ordinary, but Eastwood makes Changeling a hard story to shake off. To see this film is to understand both how fragile and how essential our hopes for decency and truth are in a world that must be made to care about either one. Read full review

  • 63
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    While the neo-Gothic tale is inherently intriguing, the film should inspire strong emotion, but deliberate pacing and a contained sense of melodrama make it a surprisingly passive experience. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post |

    Despite a mysterious title, Changeling isn't a mystery. It is, occasionally, agony. Read full review

  • 50
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    The trouble with Changeling is that it plays less like reality than like a bare-bones, moralistic rehash of other, better movies, such as "L.A. Confidential" or "Frances." Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    The truth about the case of Christine Collins is so shocking and dramatic that embellishment must have seemed pointless, but in sticking so close to the historical record, Mr. Straczynski and Mr. Eastwood have produced a distended, awkward narrative whose strongest themes are lost in the murky pomp of period detail. Read full review

View more reviews for Changeling on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Suspenseful, overlong drama isn't meant for kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this 1920s-set drama recounts real-life events that could be quite disturbing to children and young teens. It examines the disappearance of a young boy who was likely murdered; some upsetting scenes show what might have been his ghastly misfortune. There are some gory images, and wrongfully imprisoned women are treated very badly in a psych ward. Authority figures are unreliable and commit betrayals, and there's some mild swearing (including a few uses of "f--k") and period-accurate smoking.
  • Families can talk about the movie's messages. What does it say about people in positions of authority? Is the implication that all such people are unreliable, or just the characters in the movie? Why do you think Christine was betrayed the way she was? Do you think something like this could happen today? How would you characterize director Clint Eastwood's approach to telling this story? Families can also discuss the film's accuracy. Why might filmmakers bend the truth when making a movie based on real life? How could you find out more about Christine's case if you wanted to?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: A serial killer is on the loose, but nobody discovers his grisly misdeeds until it's far too late and many lives have been lost. A mother is clearly loving but leaves her 9-year-old alone in the house when a work emergency arises. Corrupt cops take advantage of defenseless women. Ultimately, a defenseless woman manages to tap into a deep well of courage and seeks justice. There's a very loving, close mother-son relationship.
What to watch for
  • violence false4 Violence: A few gory moments, including one scene in which a murderer has blood spattered on his face, presumably because he's in the middle of a heinous crime. Women are wrongfully imprisoned in a psych ward, where they're physically forced to take medication, asked to sign documents incriminating themselves, slapped and dragged, and given electroshock therapy for insubordination. A confession scene includes stomach-turning images and descriptions. Machine guns are fired. An execution by hanging is shown from beginning to end. Loud confrontations between a criminal and the mother of one of his victims.
  • sex false0 Sex: Mild flirting.
  • language false3 Language: Mostly tame, with words like "damn" and "hell," though the words "son of a bitch" and "f--k" are used in a few instances.
  • consumerism false1 Consumerism: Brands and signage for Pacific Telephone & Telegraph, Bummy's Diner, KGF News Radio, Colgate, and more.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Lots of period-accurate smoking. Some characters are forced to take tranquilizers against their will.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

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