Changeling

As one would expect from a Clint Eastwood film, Changeling is solidly directed, with good performances and well-observed period detail. It does however sometimes feel like 2 different films edited together, even though both strands are inextricably entwined. The story of Christine Collins herself provides ample material: a single mother, a missing child, involvement with a corrupt police department and a spell in a psychiatric ward. Meanwhile the other strand follows the terrible events uncovered on an isolated farm by a cop who thinks he's merely dealing with a juvenile deportation. Both stories are gripping in their different ways but once the film starts cutting between them, one begins to detract from the other.
What does come across loud and clear is the astonishingly patronising attitude towards women by those in positions of authority. The LAPD bank on Christine being dismissed as merely a hysterical woman when she insists that the returned boy isn't her son. Even physical impossibilities are glossed over by "experts", implying she's too stupid to understand, and when she refuses to conform and be the invisible little woman, she is made to disappear (it turns out that unco-operative women are systematically condemned as being mentally ill and locked up until they decide to conform) Corruption within the LAPD is rife, even extending to an intention to ignore accusations of murder. Purely in formal terms, the audience knows the two strands must be connected. As the horror on the farm is uncovered, we realize Christine has yet to experience the worst. The ending itself is intensely bittersweet. She might smile and say she's now got hope, but the expression on the cop's face says the opposite. In some ways, hope is the worst thing that could happen. There will be no closure for her.