THE CHANGEOVER
New Zealand, 2017, 95 minutes, Colour.
Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynskey, Lucy Lawless, Erana James, Nicholas Galitzine, Kate Harcourt, Benji Purchase.
Directed by Miranda Harcourt, Stuart McKenzie?.
This is a film from New Zealand, set in Christchurch after the destruction by the earthquakes.
Erana James portrays a young girl who has second sight, something like her father who has died. She is being brought up by her mother, played by Melanie Lynskey (after a successful career in Hollywood and returning to her home New Zealand where she made such an impact with Kate Winslet in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures).
The mysterious presence in the cast is British actor, Timothy Spall, an initially genial man who takes a liking to the heroine’s little brother. This is a world of magic and someone trying to take over another personality. Which means that the heroine who encounters sympathetic members of a carbon has to be transformed so that she can combat the evil doer.
Rather slight in itself but for those who enjoy this kind of magic/which world.
1. An ordinary world? Yet a world of magic, witches and spells?
2. The New Zealand setting, Christchurch as the city, locations, after the earthquake? The musical score?
3. The title, the explanation of what was happening with mortals being taken over?
4. Laura, her age, the background of her father and his magic, at home with her mother, ordinary life, her brother and protecting him? Her being a seer? Sensing of the world beyond?
5. The explanation, her school friends, Sorensen and seeing him at school, mysterious, distrust, then change, attraction towards him?
6. Carmody Braque, his friendship, the gift for her brother, her fear, threatening the police? His continued appearances, knowing about the family, her mother? The boy’s toy? The abduction of her brother?
7. The introduction to the coven, the members of the family, their powers? Sorensen as part of the coven?
8. Carmody exercising his powers, changing, the change in her brother, the change in Laura, his taking them over?
9. Laura, the rituals, wanting to become a witch, reliance on the members of the coven?
10. The transformation, the changeover, her ability to deceive Carmody Braque, defeating him?
11. Meanwhile at the hospital, her mother and concern, her brother, the surgery? His death? Laura arriving, her powers, her brother’s recovery and giving him back to their mother?
