A Mother's Determination: Angelina Jolie in Eastwood's The Exchange

Angelina Jolie and director Clint Eastwood discuss this Prohibition-era drama based on a mother's fight against the LAPD for justice.

by Karl Rozemeyer

Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie at the Cannes photocall for The Exchange Photo by Matt Carr

Now that a kung fu-fighting panda and a whip-cracking archeologist have all taken their bows at the Cannes Film Festival, the focus has shifted to more serious fare. Perhaps the most anticipated movie in competition this year is Clint Eastwood's latest project, The Exchange, which was previously known as Changeling. (It is unclear at the time of this writing what the final title of the film will be.) The script was written by J. Michael Straczynski and is a period thriller based on events that took place in Los Angeles in 1928.

Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) is a young, single mother whose son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) disappears. After five frustrating months, a boy is returned to her, but, while his features are very similar, she suspects he is not her child. Faced with mounting bad press and desperate to close the case, an embattled Los Angeles Police Department captain (Jeffrey Donovan) convinces Christine that she is in shock and that in time she will realize the child is, in fact, really Walter. She protests and produces dental records, testimony from teachers, and proof that her son was taller and circumcised, but her efforts only inflame the LAPD. Collins is eventually locked up in an asylum; her only ally is the activist Reverend Briegleb (John Malkovich).

In many ways, these events seem too shocking to be true, but the story is based on an actual case from the 20's. At the press conference held after the film's premiere, Straczynski commented, "I was so astonished by the extent to which she suffered by asking one simple, clear question: 'What happened to my child?' It is based almost one hundred percent on what happened. There is almost no fabrication there at all. I just wrote it all down."

A Mighty Heart covers emotionally similar territory in that it too is a story about a woman whose loved one is abducted.
Angelina Jolie: I was very aware of the similarities that they both lose loved ones that are so close to them but I read this script and I just couldn't forget it. As a mother, it is a very different thing. Christine is [living in a] period where women do not have the rights to speak up as Mariane Pearl did, so the period was very interesting for me. She was a woman of the 1920s, and as a very modern outspoken woman myself, I knew that was going to be a challenge. To lose a child, I cannot imagine anything worse, especially not knowing the fate of that child. So it did feel very different to me, although they had very similar themes.

Angelina Jolie in The Exchange Courtesy of Universal International

How did you learn about the script?
Clint Eastwood: It was given to me by Brian Grazer and he said read it. And I was going on a trip to Berlin, and so on the way back I read it and I was completely entranced.

What are the challenges of telling a true story about a fight for justice without losing the strength of the emotions of those involved?
CE: It seems like every two or three decades in Los Angeles, the police department and political structure has gone through some sort of revolution where they have been caught in some sort of corruption activities. 1928 is one of those periods. And obviously, the dismissal of her original complaint that the child was missing, and [saying] we will get to it and he will come around, instead of sending somebody right on down [illustrates that]. She was a single mother and maybe that wouldn't have gone so well in those days. Who knows? Their lackadaisical attitude came back to haunt them. With the help of the minister portrayed by John Malkovich in the film, the tenacity was there and she just followed through until she got some answers.