Having prided himself on being the cinematic embodiment of masculinity, Clint Eastwood probably didn’t need to state in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t spend his free time watching chick flicks.
Then again, he’s starred in his fair share of big-screen romances over the years, so it’s not as if he actively shied away from embracing tenderness on camera. Still, the movie he used as the jumping-off point to distance himself from being a celebrator of the humble chick-flick stands out as bizarre, if only because he was talking about a haunting, powerful drama at the time.
2008’s Changeling found Angelina Jolie on Academy Award-nominated form as Christine Collins, a mother who returns home one day to find her son Walter inexplicably missing. Five months later, the single mother from Los Angeles receives a call informing her that her child has been found safe and unharmed in Illinois.
However, when she goes to meet him at the train station, she discovers that Walter, whom the authorities have presented to her, is a completely different child. Naturally, people in positions of power deny her claims that she’s been given somebody else’s kid and told it was her own, leaving her to battle back against accusations that she’s lost her mind while attempting to uncover and expose the corrupt forces responsible.
Pretty much the complete and polar opposite of a chick-flick in every way, Eastwood nonetheless set out his stall in an interview with The Guardian, driven by his desire to tell stories focusing on women that had seen Changeling follow hot on the heels of Million Dollar Baby.
“I mean, I love stories about women. I’m not a chick-flick enthusiast, but that’s what I like about this. It’s a wonderful story of what this woman had to go through and how she has to change and what it does to her life,” he said. “And that, to me, is a film that is reminiscent of the 1940s, of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or somebody who was trying to overcome something. It seemed like the stories there involved the women more, rather than them just being, you know, fluff. I like that a lot.”
He did acknowledge the story’s inherent darkness, too, which becomes even more sinister given that Changeling was based on a true story. “It’s a woman’s horror story – the dilemma of being a woman in the 1920s and the dilemma of losing a child and what to do when you don’t have a political system or a police system that would come to your rescue,” he continued. “I don’t mind telling a dark side. Drama usually has some sort of intense conflict.”
As if it was ever up for debate, Changeling is not a chick-flick, but Eastwood felt compelled anyway to let the world know he wasn’t a big fan of them.