Earlier this year, Angelina Jolie lost the Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart," the story of a woman who lost her husband in Iraq while the two were working as journalists there. Come February, it may be another tale of deep personal loss that earns Jolie the Academy Award that eluded her just a year before. If she's not a serious candidate for her role as a woman searching for her missing son in Clint Eastwood's "Changeling," something's more off than a corrupt police department.

That's not a random jab at cops in general. Rather, it's a reference to the shady Los Angeles Police Department Christine Collins (Jolie) is up against in Eastwood's latest masterpiece, based on a true story of corruption, love and perseverance.

After coming back from a shift as a telephone and telegram supervisor to her Los Angeles home in the spring of 1928, Christine finds that her nine-year-old son Walter is gone. The LAPD is desperate for a "feel-good" story to combat the negative press it's generated for itself with scandalous mob connections and the like.

When Collins hears they've found her son in Dekalb, Ill. five months later, she's elated. The elation turns to heartbreak and confusion when she greets a boy stepping off the train who is anyone but her son.

"That's not Walter," is her first reaction upon meeting her supposedly found son. Sure it is, the cops say. Christine is obviously just in shock over the traumatic ordeal and the boy himself is not the same Walter she knows after five months of living with his kidnapper, they tell her.

It doesn't take Christine long to figure out that people in positions of power have a considerable advantage in any argument, even when that argument is as ludicrous as telling a mother a boy is her own son when everyone knows he's not. She soon ends up in a mental hospital where, despite offerings of freedom for admitting the police were right, she sticks to her story that her son remains out there somewhere.

John Malkovich is excellent as the Rev. Gustav Briegleb, a pastor who has made it his personal mission in life to expose the LAPD of the corruption that has infested it.

This is a good picture in most respects, but first and foremost is Jolie's performance. Look, I get as tired as the next person of seeing "Brangelina" plastered all over the media walking down the street with their 17 kids and their overly publicized attempts to combat social welfare issues around the globe, but it can no longer be accurately stated that the woman cannot act.

"Changeling" proves she definitely can.

The movie also proves Eastwood still knows what he's doing behind the camera. The 78-year-old Hollywood legend may not have quite the larger-than-life impact in front of the camera he once did, but behind it he's as impressive as ever.

I'm not usually one for showing much emotion in a movie, but at one point I think I almost felt a tear well up in the corner of my right eye. At another point, I wanted to yell something along the lines of "Yeah, how 'bout them apples?" to a police officer who was getting reamed by an attorney.

To me, that means the actors and director were doing something right to have me — an emotionally distant movie viewer — emotionally invested in the film. The film manages to outrage, depress, inspire and motivate within its 140-minute runtime.

"Changeling" is not always the most fun film to watch, and it sometimes shows us things that we'd probably not see or even think about. It's certainly not something to watch mindlessly to pass a couple hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon. But it is quite an amazing story and presentation on numerous levels.

Come next year, it will also give you an idea of what it takes to earn a Best Actress nomination.

Joel Sensenig is news editor of the Review Times.