The Changeling Review Episode 1-2: Kaleidoscope of Ideas and Reflections Pass Through The Horror Narrative | Apple TV+
Cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Adina Porter, Clark Backo, Emy Coligado, Elena Hurst, Elizabeth Whitmere, Allison Price, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Christina Catechis, Melanie Lachman, Rosalina Lee, Housten Daghighi, Malcolm Barrett
Director: Melina Matsoukas, Jonathan van Tulleken
Streaming Platform: Apple TV+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
“If you ended up in a fairy tale would you notice?” this is the question that marks the trailer of The Changeling, the 8-episode series created by Kelly Marcel, based on the dark fantasy novel of the same name by Victor LaValle (2017), the series enters the Apple TV+ catalog from 8 September 2023 with the first three episodes that lead the viewer into the story of Apollo and Emma, played by LaKeith Stanfield and Clark Backo, a young couple in love who lives a real fairy tale. But are all fairy tales dreams?
Sometimes there are series that are born with the best ideals but which, then, in the execution of these good intentions, get lost in the too many meanings and signifiers that they wanted to give to the story. This happens in the review of The Changeling, from 8 September on Apple TV+ with a weekly appointment. Taken from the novel of the same name by Victor LaValle, who for the occasion becomes the omniscient voice-over narrator of this story transposed onto the screen, the dramedy stars LaKeith Stanfield, here also a producer, who most will remember as the perennially stoned Darius in Atlanta by Donald Glover as well as in various films on black history and culture such as Judas and the Black Messiah, Escape – Get Out and Selma – Road to Freedom. The actor plays a young father who faces a real Odyssey in today’s New York.
The Changeling Review Episode 1-2: The Story Plot
It’s very complicated to summarize what the new original Apple TV+ series is about but we’ll try. The series, adapted for TV by Kelly Marcel, is a fairy tale for adults, as the Italian subtitle states, but also a horror story, and a story about parenthood and if we want a great religious allegory and about the discrimination of blacks and of immigrants in general in the United States. A boy meets a girl: what they have in common is a passion for books with a poetic and perpetually subdued New York in the background, shrouded in fog, through a soft and dark photograph. The two fall in love just as she did alongside his parents many years earlier, and she becomes pregnant with her. History seems to repeat itself, as both want to be better than their absent fathers, while the mothers suffer from postpartum depression. Yet the child of Apollo (Lakeith Stanfield, really devoted to this role) and Emma (Clark Backo), named Bryan just like his father who disappeared and was born in exceptional circumstances, seems to be the son of the Devil. That’s not all: there also seems to be a stalker who follows the lives of the two new parents and they both have an unconfessed family secret.
The Changeling Review Episode 1-2 and Analysis
Already from this little information, you will have understood how this serial is full of reading levels, themes, tones, and genres all amalgamated together in a recipe that is not always balanced. Even the duration and different structure of the episodes – such as the penultimate one, focused on Apollo’s mother played by Adina Porter, with a theatrical imprint even in the editing which is paradoxically not suitable for this television story – do not help to have a homogeneous and fluid result overall. The Changeling, initially presents itself as a fairy tale, thanks to the narrator who, through his voice, perhaps a little too flat and detached, wants the audience to follow the exploits of the characters. Various effective quotes, included in the evocative acronym and engraved on the furniture that appears in the show or contained in the fortune cookies, contribute to creating a fairy-tale atmosphere.
An atmosphere that is constantly interrupted in each episode by an event bordering on the supernatural, with various horror suggestions that make viewers believe that something sinister is about to come true or that the fate of the two protagonists is closely linked to something terrible. Even with the devil. However, these are not the only contents of the serial. Moreover, The Changeling, is a great allegory of the Bible and religious parables and stories in general. Not only that: it is also a tragedy of Greek and Latin style with at its center the infinite crossing of the protagonists to return to their loved ones and save their son, almost as if it were the future of humanity, in which we must understand how much Fate counts and how much the Free Will. There’s even a “witch” who makes Emma make three wishes through a symbolic bracelet that should never be broken, and there’s Apollo who’s named after a God, as well as his co-star from Rocky.
At the same time, the show is a metaphor for racial discrimination and discrimination against women in US society yesterday and today, of how it has always been advertised as the country of freedom but is then full of contradictions and hypocrisies. All the directors involved, starting with Melina Matsoukas, seem to have made an effort to create something avant-garde, never seen before, which experiments, which dares, and however appreciable the intent is, the result, constantly nebulous and staid, does not it helps to keep the audience’s attention high, forcing them to find too many interpretations to understand the serial text they are seeing.to testify once again the power of love which, as often happens, conquers everything and is the most powerful and mysterious magic that exists.
The Changeling is a kaleidoscope of ideas and reflections that pass through the horror narrative, about motherhood and fatherhood, about being parents, and Apollo and Emma become symbols of something different, something deeper. Fairy tales often speak of growing up – and the two protagonists, despite being adults, are taking an important step, even more so if one thinks of the traumas they have suffered – and to do this one must also go through darkness, through a hell of trials and disturbing rites of passage and even sometimes a re-proposal of past patterns. That of Apollo and Emma is a modern version of ancient myths and legends, a horrific and ruthless Bildungsroman in the folds of horror in which magic and curses.
The first three episodes allow the viewer to immerse themselves in a universe as fascinating as it is frightening in which the threads that intertwine are many and terrifying and it is no coincidence that one of the most important moments is the one in which a “witch” in the Brazilian woods on Emma’s wrist a red bracelet that allows her to express three wishes that will come true when she falls, alone and this is the only incontrovertible law. But what happens if the chosen partner, sinning with drunkenness, believing himself to be God Apollo, breaks the bracelet, provoking and challenging that simple but rigorous talisman? Everything in Emma and Apollo’s life gets complicated, from the simplest things to real dramas; and, interestingly, the series uses the pretext of horror to narrate the postpartum crisis, a topic that is still very difficult to analyze and narrate.
So, after the birth of their child, his wife Emma continues to receive mysterious photos via text message, images that continue to disappear before Apollo can see them. Neither of them sleeps, which pushes both to be increasingly fragile and increasingly distant from each other. That is, until something unthinkable happens, leaving Apollo to make sense of it all and explore a scary, hidden world that opens up before him. The Changeling works on dreams and hopes that then become something else, the love story between Emma and Apollo is believed as they are seen joking and playing at the beginning of their courtship. You feel tenderness for those two adults who support each other, who lean on each other in ways that are first small and then increasingly large and familiar. We appreciate the presence of Apollo’s mother, an impeccable Adina Porter, and Emma’s sister, Kim (Amirah Vahn).
According to Apple, The Changeling is “a coming-of-age fairy tale, a horror story, a fable about parenting, and a dangerous odyssey through an unfamiliar New York”. In a horror series, in a macabre fairy tale, Apollo and Emma fall into a frightening whirlpool, into a very disturbing hell, in an Odyssey that gives no discounts to anyone. We go back to when men and women were children, they have deep wounds and traumas that live in them and still beat like a sick heart that torments and takes away the possibility of seeing lights in a world of shadows. Apollo relives his father’s abandonment over and over again and when he becomes a parent perhaps all this hurts even more, Emma relives her parents’ death, but did everything happen as she remembers?
Struggling with their ghosts, the protagonists do not realize that what they have created has unbearable cracks, Apollo does not realize, or at least not fully, that Emma is behaving strangely, she is increasingly distant and intolerant until when, one day, he does something unspeakable. Emma needs a hand, she feels more and more alone, and no one is next to her in such a complex moment; She begins to question whether their baby is their baby, a delusion that intensifies when her too-brief maternity leave ends, and she seeks advice from a group of moms on social media. Has she accomplished what she seems? How dark can be the secrets of the people we love the most? Thus begins Apollo’s adventure in search of the truth about that terrible act an illusion that intensifies when her too-short maternity leave ends, and she seeks advice from a group of mothers on social media. Has she accomplished what it seems?
The Changeling Review Episode 1-2: The Last Words
In The Changeling, at the beginning, the relationship between Apollo, a sort of Odysseus who patrols the black seas, and Emma, played wonderfully, seems like a kind of fairy tale come true, but this becomes monstrous history even when the couple meets for the first time, there is a sense of dread that permeates their joy. Through unusual angles and eerie lighting, it is suggested that something sinister is lurking. At the end of the review of The Changeling, we confirm that it is a product with a compelling and interesting idea on paper, full of ideas and possible readings, unfortunately not on par with their performance on the screen. Too many themes and contents are held together by direction and photography that are continually slow and dark, constantly narrated by an almost flat omniscient voice.
The Changeling Review Episode 1-2: Kaleidoscope of Ideas and Reflections Pass Through The Horror Narrative | Apple TV+ - Filmyhype
Director: The Changeling, The Changeling Review, The Changeling Apple Tv+, The Changeling Series Review, The Changeling Episode 1 Review, The Changeling Episode 2 Review,
Date Created: 2023-09-08 19:14
3
Pros
- The basic subject.
- Mix fairy tale with horror as in the best fairy tale tradition.
- The themes and allegories that the series wants to bring to light…
Cons
- Which end up being too many and confusedly mixed.
- LaKeith Stanfield strongly believes in the project, but that's not enough.
- The photography and direction, too soft and smoky.
- The narrative pace too staid.
