Changeling

Plot

In 1928 Los Angeles, single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) returns home to discover her nine-year-old son, Walter (Griffith), is missing. Reverend Gustav Briegleb (Malkovich) publicizes Christine's plight and rails against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for its incompetence, corruption and the extrajudicial punishment meted out by its "Gun Squad", led by ChiefJames E. Davis (Colm Feore). Several months after Walter's disappearance, the LAPD tells Christine that he has been found alive. Believing the positive publicity will negate recent criticism of the department, the LAPD organizes a public reunion. Although "Walter" (Devon Conti) claims he is Christine's son, she says he is not. Captain J. J. Jones (Donovan), the head of the LAPD's Juvenile Division, insists the boy is Walter and pressures Christine into taking him home "on a trial basis".

After Christine confronts Jones with physical discrepancies between "Walter" and her son, Jones arranges for a medical doctor to visit her. He tells Christine that "Walter" is shorter than before his disappearance because trauma has shrunk his spine, and that the man who took Walter had him circumcised. A newspaper prints a story that implies Christine is an unfit mother; Briegleb tells Christine it was planted by police to discredit her. Walter's teacher and dentist give Christine signed letters confirming "Walter" is an impostor. Christine tells her story to the press; as a result, Jones sends her to Los Angeles County Hospital's "psychopathic ward". She befriends inmate Carol Dexter (Ryan), who tells Christine she is one of several women who were sent there for challenging police authority. Dr. Steele (Denis O'Hare) deems Christine delusional and forces her to take mood-regulating pills. Steele says he will release Christine if she admits she was mistaken about "Walter"; she refuses.

Detective Ybarra (Kelly) travels to a ranch in Wineville, Riverside County, to arrange the deportation of 15-year-old Sanford Clark to Canada. The boy's uncle, Gordon Northcott (Harner), has fled after Ybarra unwittingly alerted him to his visit. Clark tells Ybarra that Northcott forced him to help kidnap and murder around 20 boys and identifies Walter as one of them. Jones tells Briegleb that Christine is in protective custody following a mental breakdown. Jones orders Clark's deportation, but Ybarra makes Clark reveal the murder site. Briegleb secures Christine's release by showing Steele a newspaper story about the Wineville killings that names Walter as a possible victim. "Walter" reveals his motive was to secure transport to Los Angeles to see his favorite actor, Tom Mix, and says the police told him to lie about being Christine's son. The RCMP capture Northcott in Vancouver, Canada. Christine's attorney (Pierson) secures a court order for the release of the other unfairly imprisoned women.

On the day of the city council's hearing into the case, Christine and Briegleb arrive at Los Angeles City Hall, where they encounter thousands of protesters demanding answers from the city. The hearing is intercut with scenes from Northcott's trial. The council concludes that Jones and Davis should be removed from duty, and that extrajudicial internments by police must be reviewed. Northcott's jury finds him guilty of murder and the judge sentences him to death by hanging. Two years later, Christine has not given up her search for Walter. Northcott sends her a message saying he is willing to tell her what happened to Walter on condition that Christine meet him before his execution. She visits Northcott, but he refuses to tell her if he killed her son. Northcott is executed the next day.

In 1935, David Clay—one of the boys assumed to have been killed—is found alive. He reveals that one of the boys with whom he was imprisoned was Walter. David, Walter and two other boys escaped, but were separated. David does not know whether Walter was recaptured, giving Christine hope he is alive.

The Lovely Bones

Plot

On December 6, 1973, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, Susie Salmon takes her usual shortcut home from her school through a cornfield. George Harvey, a 36-year-old neighbor who lives alone and builds dollhouses for a living, persuades her to have a look at an underground den he has recently dug in the field. Once she has entered it, he rapes and murders her, dismembers her body, puts her remains in a safe and dumps it in a sinkhole. Susie's spirit flees toward her personal heaven.

The Salmon family refuses to accept that Susie is dead, until Susie's elbow is found by a neighbor's dog. The police talk to Harvey, finding him odd but seeing no reason to suspect him. Susie's father Jack, on extended leave from work, begins to suspect Harvey, a sentiment his surviving daughter Lindsey comes to share.

One day Len Fenerman, the detective assigned to the case, tells the Salmons that the police have exhausted all leads and are dropping the investigation. That night in his study, Jack looks out the window and sees a flashlight in the cornfield. Believing it is Harvey returning to destroyevidence, he runs out to confront him, armed with a baseball bat. The figure is not actually Harvey, but Brian, one of Susie's classmates who is dating Susie's best friend Clarissa. As Susie watches in horror from heaven, Brian beats Jack with the bat, breaking his knee. While Jack recovers from a knee replacement surgery, Susie's mother, Abigail, begins an affair with the widowed Detective Fenerman.

Trying to help her father prove his suspicions, Lindsey sneaks into Harvey's house and finds a diagram of the underground den, but is forced to leave when Harvey returns unexpectedly. The police, however, satisfied with Harvey's explanation, do not arrest him, which allows him to flee Norristown. Later, evidence is discovered linking Harvey to Susie's murder, as well as to those of several other young girls. Susie meets his other victims in heaven, sees into Harvey's traumatic childhood, and realizes that he has made several unsuccessful attempts to stop killing.

Abigail leaves Jack, eventually taking a job at a winery in California. Her mother, Grandma Lynn, moves into the Salmons' home to care for Buckley and Lindsey. Lindsey and her boyfriend, Samuel Heckler, become engaged, find an old house in the woods owned by a classmate's father, and decide to fix it up and live there. Sometime after the celebration, while arguing with his son Buckley, Jack suffers a heart attack. The emergency prompts Abigail to return from California, but the reunion is tempered by Buckley's lingering bitterness for her abandoning the family.

Meanwhile, Harvey returns to Norristown, which has become more developed. He explores his old neighborhood and notices the school is being expanded into the cornfield where he murdered Susie. He drives by the sinkhole where Susie's body rests and where Ruth Connors and Ray Singh are standing. Ruth, Susie's former classmate who had felt Susie's spirit rush past her immediately after she was murdered, senses the women Harvey has killed and is physically overcome. Susie, watching from heaven, is also overwhelmed with emotion and feels how she and Ruth transcend their present existence, and the two girls exchange positions: Susie, her spirit now in Ruth's body, connects with Ray, who had a crush on Susie in school, and had made plans to go out with her a few days before the murder. Ray senses Susie's presence, and takes advantage of the fact that Susie is briefly back with him. In Hal Heckler's (the older brother of Lindsey's boyfriend Samuel) bike shop they find a room to make love, as Susie has longed to do after witnessing her sister and Samuel. Afterwards, Susie must return to heaven.

Susie moves on into another, larger part of heaven, occasionally watching earthbound events. Her sister gives birth to a daughter, Abigail Suzanne. When stalking another young girl inNew Hampshire, Harvey is hit by a huge icicle and falls down a snow-covered slope, dying from the wound. At the end of the novel, Susie's charm bracelet is found by a Norristown couple who know nothing of its significance, and Susie closes the story by wishing the reader "a long and happy life."

Malèna

Plot

The film is set in Sicily in 1940 during World War II just as Italy enters the war. Malena's husband, Nino Scordia, leaves to serve in the military. She learns that her husband has been killed. Malena tries to cope with her loss, as the town she has moved to tries to deal with this beautiful woman who gets the attention of all the local men, including the 12-year-old Renato. However, in spite of the gossip, she continues to be faithful to her husband. Renato becomes obsessed with Malena and starts fantasizing about her.

Renato continues to watch as she suffers from grief. Malena is shunned by the townspeople who begin to believe the worst about her, simply because of her beauty.

She visits her father, an almost deaf professor of Latin, regularly and helps him with his chores. When a slanderous letter reaches his hands, their relationship suffers a catastrophic blow. In the meanwhile, the war worsens. The village is bombed and Malena's father is killed.

She eventually has no money. The wife of the local dentist takes her to court, but Malena is acquitted. The only man Malena does have an innocent romance with, an army officer, is sent away.

Malena's poverty finally forces her to become a prostitute. When the German army comes to town, Malena gives herself to Germans as well. Renato sees her in the company of two German officers and faints.

His mother and the older ladies think that he has been possessed and take him to church for an exorcism. His father however takes him to a brothel; Renato has sex with one of the prostitutes while fantasizing that she is Malena.

When the war ends, the women gather and publicly beat and humiliate Malena, who leaves for Messina. A few days later, Nino Scordia returns, to the shock of all the residents. He finds his house occupied by people displaced by the war. Renato tells him through an anonymous letter about Malena's whereabouts.

Nino goes to Messina to find her. A year later, they return. The villagers, especially the women, astonished at her courage, begin to talk to "Signora Scordia" with respect. Though still beautiful, they think of her as no threat claiming that she had wrinkles near her eyes and put on some weight.

In the last scene near the beach, Renato helps her pick up some oranges that had dropped from her shopping bag. Afterwards he wishes her "Buona fortuna, Signora Malena" (good luck, Mrs. Malena) and rides off on his bicycle, looking back at her for a final time, as she walks away. As this final scene fades out, an adult Renato's voice-over reflects that he has not forgotten Malena, even after the passage of so many years. He says, "Of all the girls who asked me to remember them, the only one I remembered is the one who did not ask." The audience is left not knowing if Malena ever realizes Renato's feelings for her.

Million Dollar Baby

Plot

Margaret Fitzgerald,(Hilary Swank) an Irish-American waitress from a Missouri town in the Ozarks, shows up in the Hit Pit, a run-down Los Angeles gym owned and operated by Frankie Dunn,(Clint Eastwood) a brilliant but only marginally successful boxing trainer. Maggie asks Dunn to train her, but he responds that he doesn't train "girls."

Maggie attempts to win over the grouchy Frankie by working out tirelessly each day in his gym, even when others discourage her. Frankie's friend and employee, ex-boxer Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris,(Morgan Freeman) encourages and helps her all he can. Scrap also narrates the story.

Frankie's prize prospect, "Big" Willie Little, reluctantly signs with successful manager Mickey Mack after becoming impatient with Dunn turning down offers for a championship bout. With prodding from Scrap and impressed with her persistence, Frankie reluctantly agrees to train Maggie. He warns her that he will teach her only the basics and then find her another trainer. His most important advice is to protect herself in the ring at all times.

Maggie turns out to be a natural. She fights her way up in the women's welterweight boxing division, winning many of her bouts with first-round knockouts. Estranged from his own daughter, who returns his letters unopened, Frankie comes to establish an almost paternal bond with Maggie. He eventually arranges a meeting for her with Mickey Mack, but she is more loyal than Big Willie. She exacts a promise from Frankie not to abandon her again. He accompanies her to Europe, where he bestows a Gaelic nickname on her as she continues to win.

Maggie's own white trash family cares little for her well-being. Maggie saves up enough of her winnings to buy her mother a house, but instead of being grateful, she berates Maggie for endangering her welfare payments and Medicaid benefits. She also belittles her daughter's success in the ring, saying that everyone back home is laughing at her.

Frankie is finally willing to arrange a title fight. He secures Maggie a $1 million match in Las Vegas against the WBA women's welterweight champion, Billie "The Blue Bear", a German ex-prostitute who has a reputation as a dirty fighter. Overcoming a shaky start, Maggie begins to dominate the fight, but after a round has ended, Billie knocks her out with a sucker punch from behind. Before Frankie can pull a stool out of the way, Maggie lands hard on it, breaking her neck and leaving her a quadriplegic.

At first, Frankie refuses to accept the bleak prognosis, but dozens of other medical opinions unanimously confirm there is no hope of recovery. He half-heartedly places the responsibility on Scrap for convincing him to train Maggie, but in the end blames himself.

In a medical rehabilitation facility, Maggie looks forward to a visit from her family, though Frankie repeatedly calls them with no success. Eventually, the family arrives -- but only after first visiting Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood -- and with an attorney in tow. Their lone concern is to arrange the transfer of Maggie's assets to them. She sees through their transparent scheme and orders them to leave, threatening to sell their house if they ever show their faces again.

Frankie never leaves her side. He reads to her, urges her to go back to school and invites her to come live with him. As the days pass, though, Maggie develops bedsores and undergoes an amputation for an infected leg. She asks a favor of Frankie -- to help her die while she can still remember the cheers she heard, saying she got what she most wanted out of life.

A horrified Frankie refuses, but seeks the advice of his Catholic priest (whom he has tormented for 23 years). Father Horvak warns him that euthanasia is a grave sin, far worse than anything he has ever done. Maggie bites her tongue repeatedly in an attempt to bleed to death, but the medical staff saves her life and takes measures to prevent further suicide attempts.

Frankie sneaks in one night. Just before administering a fatal injection of adrenaline, he finally tells Maggie the meaning of a nickname he gave her, Mo Chuisle (spelled incorrectly in the film as "mo cuishle"): Irish for "my darling, and my blood" (literally, "my pulse"). And then Frankie disappears for good. Scrap's narration is revealed to be a letter to Frankie's daughter, Katy, informing her of her father's true character.

My Sassy Girl (2008 film)

Plot

Like the original film, this is a story of how a nice guy falls in love with a hellion. The guy is Charlie Bellow (Bradford), a polite, kind-hearted young man from the Midwestern state of Indiana, and the hellion is Jordan Roark (Cuthbert), a beautiful, fun-loving, emotionally volatile young woman who drinks too much and lives in New York City with her father, who is a wealthy physician. Charlie narrates the story.

Charlie's parents hope Charlie will one day secure a managerial position with the Tiller King agricultural company, where his father works as a maintenance mechanic. When Charlie starts business school in New York City, he sees Jordan drunkenly leaning over the guard rail in a subway station, saves her from an oncoming train, and carries her to his apartment. During the following weeks, Charlie and Jordan have several fun, creative dates. Worried about Jordan's volatility, Charlie usually declines when she invites him somewhere, but she cheerfully ignores his refusal and he always gives in to her. Among other things, Jordan tells Charlie that her fiancé recently left her, tells a Tiller King representative she is pregnant with Charlie's child, sabotages Charlie's job interview with another Tiller King representative, and gives a piano recital. Charlie and Jordan have no sex during this time, but he falls deeply in love with her and she obviously enjoys being with him. Their dating is occasionally interrupted by Jordan's father, who believes Charlie is responsible for her drunkenness.

After two or three months, Jordan asks Charlie to meet her in Central Park to exchange love letters. At the park, she says she needs more time to heal from the loss of her fiancé. She insists that they bury their letters under a bonsai tree, stop seeing each other, and meet at the same place on the same day of the following year. When the day arrives, Charlie returns to the tree, but Jordan is not there. In her letter, she explains that her fiancé actually died, that Charlie reminds her of him, and that many of her dates with Charlie were reenactments of previous dates with her fiancé. She says that her absence at the bonsai tree means she has not healed yet and that this means destiny has dictated that she and Charlie were not meant to be together. The next day, Jordan goes to the tree, where an old man tells her Charlie has visited the tree periodically, even going so far as to replace it a few months ago after it was struck by lightning. In his letter, Charlie tells Jordan she is the only woman he will ever love and says he believes he is destined to be with her.

Some time later, Jordan meets at a restaurant with her ex-fiancé's mother. The two women got along well while he was alive, and they have stayed in touch since his death. The mother has been trying to set Jordan up with another young man, and she has arranged for the two to meet today. As she begins to describe the man, Charlie walks into the restaurant. The mother is Charlie's aunt, Jordan's fiancé was Charlie's recently deceased cousin, and Charlie is the young man himself. The film ends after Charlie and Jordan share their first kiss and Charlie explains to the audience that we all need to help destiny in shaping our lives. Repeating the old man's words, he says "You need to build a bridge to the one you love."

[edit]

Girl, Interrupted

Plot

Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), 18 years old in April 1967, voluntarily checks herself into Claymoore Hospital after an overdose of aspirin and her stay extends for over a year. She denies the accusation from many that she was attempting to commit suicide. Nurses and therapists are surprised when Susanna acknowledges that she does not actually want to go to college and would like to become a writer.

She befriends fellow patients Polly "Torch" Clark (Elisabeth Moss), Georgina Tuskin (Clea DuVall), Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), Janet Webber (Angela Bettis), Cynthia Crowley (Jillian Armenante) and forms a small troupe of troubled women in her ward. Susanna is enchanted in particular by Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie) when she sees her cause a scene. When Lisa returns to the ward after running away she notices that her old best friend's place has been taken by Susanna. She demands to know what happened to her best friend, eventually realizing that she had committed suicide. Lisa befriends Susanna and the two start causing trouble. Lisa encourages Susanna to stop taking her medications and/or trade them with others, and generally resist the influences of therapy.

During a visit outside the ward at a nearby ice cream shop, Susanna is confronted by her mother's friend, the angry wife of a man Susanna had an affair with, and her daughter. The woman harshly berates Susanna, but Lisa intervenes with a verbal assault, horrifying the older woman. As a result, Lisa loses her outside privileges.

Susanna's former boyfriend, Tobias "Toby" Jacobs (Jared Leto), comes to visit her. Toby discovers that he is going to get drafted, and he tells her he wants them to run away to Canada together. He tells her she isn't crazy and that the girls in the asylum aren't really her friends. But she refuses to go with him.

It is shown that Polly observes the couple almost wistfully as they speak outside, perhaps reflecting on her own unattractiveness and how it has impeded her from having such devotion from a man. That night, she awakes screaming. The nurses remove her and place her into solitary confinement with the intention of calming her down, but she continues sobbing. After all of the staff went to bed Susanna steals a guitar and she and Lisa sit outside Polly's room, singing "Downtown" by Petula Clark. Eventually a male orderly notices and Susanna seduces him in order for him not to report the incident, they fall asleep outside Polly's room. In the morning, Valerie Owens, the RN (Whoopi Goldberg) sees the two, she exclaims she is sick of her promiscuity and is referring her to the therapists.

The next morning, Susanna is called into the therapist's office, where she is analyzed once more. Susanna meets the head psychiatrist, Dr. Sonia Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), and attempts to shut her out with a nasty attitude. Wick decides to have Susanna be her patient from now on. She is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Lisa is also taken in to see the doctor but doesn't return, and Susanna falls into a depression. The frustrated nurse, Valerie, has had enough and throws Susanna into a cold bath to wake her. Susanna attacks her verbally.

Lisa returns, and she and Susanna break out of Claymoore. After hitching a ride, they spend the night at the house of the recently released Daisy, whom Lisa antagonizes in her usual fashion. She accuses Daisy of having incestuous sex with her father. It is revealed that Daisy continues cutting herself. Perhaps as a reaction to Lisa's words, Daisy hangs herself the next morning. Lisa runs away before anything could happen, trying to convince Susanna to come with her but she is mortified and stays. Susanna calls the police and returns to the hospital. Susanna also adopts Daisy's cat, Ruby. In the next few weeks, she begins to cooperate with her doctors and responds to her therapy, writing and painting. She is scheduled to be released.

At that point, Lisa is caught and returned by the police. Upon finding out about Susanna's pending release, Lisa targets Susanna for ridicule and emotional abuse. On her last night, Susanna awakens to discover Lisa in the maze of corridors beneath the ward, reading Susanna's diary to Georgina and Polly, including all of the private thoughts and comments she has made about the other residents, including how she thought Lisa was already dead, which she eventually declares to her. The other girls turn on Susanna, with Lisa particularly vicious. In the ensuing dispute Lisa threatens to stab herself with a large hypodermic needle, but Georgina's words disarm her. Susanna confronts Lisa, telling her the truth Lisa has been longing to hear, and Lisa has never been told the truth before about her illness, and this ends up being the thing that puts her on the road to recovery.

Susanna is released the next day. Before she leaves, she visits Lisa and talks to her again, telling her that she will get out and that she must come and see her. As Susanna leaves, she says goodbye to all her friends, giving Polly her adopted cat Ruby, reconciling with Georgina and gets into the cab. At the end of the film, Susanna states that by the 1970s, most of her friends were released and some she saw and some never again.

The Butterfly Effect

Plot

Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who suffered severe traumas as a boy (played by Logan Lerman) and a teenager (played by John Patrick Amedori), blacks out frequently, often at moments of high stress. While entertaining a girl in his dorm room, he finds that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he travels back in time, and he is able to basically "redo" parts of his past, thereby causing the blackouts he experienced as a child. There are consequences to his choices, however, that then propagate back to his present life: his alternate futures vary from college student, to prisoner, to amputee. His efforts are driven by the desire to undo the most unpleasant events of his childhood which coincide with his mysterious blackouts, including saving his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh (Amy Smart) from being molested by her father (Eric Stoltz) and harassed by her aggressive brother (William Lee Scott).

The actions he takes, and those he enables others to take during his blackouts, change the timeline in the new future wherein he awakes. As he continues to do this he realizes that even though his intentions are good his actions have unforeseen consequences. Moreover, the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternate timelines causes him brain damage and severe nosebleeds. Ultimately, he decides that his attempts to alter the past end up only harming those he cares about. But the focal point for all of these traumatic timelines appears to be Kayleigh, so Evan travels back in time once more to the first day he met her and by scaring her away finally succeeds in saving Kayleigh's life. He then destroys all of his journals so that he's not ever tempted again to make any more changes.

The film ends eight years in the future with Evan leaving an office building in Manhattan and passing Kayleigh on a crowded daytime sidewalk. They alternately pause and turn after spotting and passing each other. While Kayleigh seems to have only a vague intimation of having seen him somewhere before, Evan remembers her very well and allows the moment to pass without attempting to speak to her.