The interesting thing about Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker is that he knows how to take time. His films are meticulously paced, but the impact of his deliberate timing can vary from film to film. In Million Dollar Baby, he spends two acts building up this titanic struggle of physical aptitude and turns it around in the final third to be a poignant struggle of the nature of life and choice. In Space Cowboys though, the relatively light-hearted tale of geriatrics going into space to fix a broken satellite becomes a film of Moonranker-like absurdity with shifty Russians and evil NASA bureaucrats.

Eastwood’s cool, reflective manner serves him well in bring this story to life. Changeling is a sprawling personal epic that’s based on the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders of the late 1920s in Los Angeles, and the struggles of Christine Collins in trying to find her son, one of the probable victims of serial killer Gordon Northcott. The story is a personal journey of one woman’s pursuit of justice, a tale of corrupt power and resistance to change, and a procedural drama as detectives discover the extent of the crimes at Northcott’s Wineville ranch. It’s an ambitious story to attempt to cram into even a two-and-a-half hour film.

Angelina Jolie has the unenviable task of making Christine Collins as a real person and not the broadly drawn heroine typical to these types of stories. She’s strong and vulnerable without any of the arm flaying or shrieking you see in similarly themed Lifetime movies. Jolie does her very best, and there are certain scenes that are very provocative with intense emotion, but unfortunately the majority of Collins’ story seems overshadowed by the moral and political implications. In short, Collins, as a character, frequently feels merely like a device in her own story. And even to a point it sometimes seems that there’s so much going on that Collins gets put aside and out of mind.

Indeed, there are times it seems that the story is too big for the film, with numerous interesting characters beyond Christine Collins. John Malkovich’s Rev. Gustav Briegleb is a fascinating character, but he’s also stymied by the game packed story, although Malkovich does milk his scenes for a certain ambiguous charisma. Playing the indifferent Captain Jones, Jeffrey Donovan exudes a cool and blasé attitude that’s truly chilling with his degree of uncaring. I think the standout though is Michael Kelly as Detective Lester Ybarra, the cop that discovers the murders despite orders to ignore the witness: a boy in the country illegally and kept on the Northcott ranch. He’s just a cop doing a job, but amongst the political corruption around him, he’s the quiet hero of the piece.

Ultimately though, this is a case where Eastwood’s directorial temperament works for and against the film. Beyond the matter and the mystery of the missing, young Walter Collins is the ongoing power corrupted LAPD and their enablers in City Hall, both of which lead back to the affairs that took place on a certain ranch. The Collins case and the prosecution of LAPD’s power trip could well have made two entire movies on their own. And while Eastwood does an amazing job of weaving the various elements, there is a certain weight to the material that makes it feel almost too much for a single film. However, I do appreciate the way Eastwood lets it breathe, and almost tells itself as if time isn’t really a barrier, he just doesn’t know it.

But ultimately, despite the reservations, I have a lot of fond feelings for Changeling and predominately the film is very well done. If it weren’t for some lags in certain scenes it would probably be closer to the level of perfection we’ve come to expect from the director Clint Eastwood. But Changeling is well done, well written and well acted. It fits nicely with other recent tales of LA gone bad like Hollywoodland and L.A. Confidential and highlights a fascinating piece of history, where a confluence of events came together in one sad tale.