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.

A Lot Like Love

Plot

Constructed as a series of chapters that take place at a turning point in each character's life, the story moves from seven years in the past to three years to two and finally arrives in the present day. Emily Friehl and Oliver Martin's first encounter is on a flight from Los Angeles to New York City, during which they join the mile high club. He has hopes of becoming an Internet entrepreneur and, certain of his future success, gives her his phone number and suggests she call him in six years to see if his prediction came true.

Three years later, facing the prospect of spending New Year's Eve alone, Emily finds Oliver's number and calls him, and the two meet for dinner. Thus starts a series of reunions with the passing of time, as each drift in and out of relationships with others, Oliver and his business partner Jeeter start an on-line diaper service, and Emily becomes a successful photographer. Each time they meet, one appears to be settled and content while the other is struggling to make headway in both life and career. Eventually they come to the realization that each is exactly the person the other one needs for fulfillment.