The Changeling

Featuring dynamic performances from Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield and Clark Backo, the sprawling eight-episode fable is a fascinating and sometimes unsettling exploration of love, parenthood and the up-all-night anxieties that spawn from them.

Centering it is Stanfield, who gives maybe one of the most nuanced and gut-wrenching performances you’ll ever see in a horror series or film. Few actors can make you feel the pain and anguish inside of a character with the ferocity that he can. He is the one driving this series over the finish line.

Certainly a portion of the audience will take issue with the finale, which doesn't provide all that many answers and concludes when things are really getting good, but I wasn't bothered by the show's lack of hand-holding. Anyone willing to go along for the ride is in for an enchanting storybook of a series, one of the year's most singular offerings.

The pace accelerates in the final two episodes, which borders on feeling rushed, though the series is doing its best to both satisfy certain storylines and tee up an even more fantastical Season 2. Though not every plot point gets the payoff (or answers) it deserves, The Changeling is an engrossing and unnerving adaptation, as well as a welcome addition to the genre.

Thanks to a fine performance from Stanfield as well as a story that’s just starting to get spooky by the end of the first episode, The Changeling hooks in the viewer and gets them ready to follow Apollo on a journey that promises to be full of scares and surprises.

There’s a fairy tale quality to a story that constantly twists and turns. Like Victor LaValle’s novel, it manages to touch on a number of issues and secrets. When it ties this story to other, classic books, “The Changeling” really shines. Stanfield, too, is the best man to play the game.

Likely to be one of the more wonderfully erratic but ambitious and absorbing shows of the season.

As "The Changeling" becomes more fantastical, it also takes bigger creative swings. Most of them land, by and large, but there will no doubt be moments that will have more than a few viewers wondering what the heck is going on. The show is intentional with this disorientation, however, and those who stay on for the ride will see how it all comes together. Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/1379849/the-changeling-review-apple-tv/

There’s a consistent elegance of visual form at work here, thanks to the primary director, Jonathan van Tulleken, a trio of shrewdly compatible cinematographers, composer Dan Deacon’s eerie flourishes and other design and production elements. Stanfield’s terrific; always is, actually. Backo’s alternately yearning, desperate and haunted Emmy drives the material, at least when her character is allowed to claim the driver’s seat.

It’s another great showcase for LaKeith Stanfield, who can absolutely thrive as a leading man — but unless a second installment of The Changeling majorly focuses its lens, audiences might decide that some mysteries are better left unsolved.

At times, especially in the season’s endgame, it feels like something is lost in translation simply because, well, it has to be translated and made real. Having said that, “The Changeling” works because everyone involved clearly was committed to LaValle’s vision. Stanfield is phenomenal, another excellent performance in an increasingly impressive list of great performances.

The question is whether it’s worth it. The answer is yes, but it’s a qualified yes. The eight-episode Apple TV+ limited series gets off to a rollicking start but has a hard time maintaining its momentum. It is engrossing. It’s also difficult to watch at times and for different reasons. This is not a criticism of the horrific scenes, of which there are a few. .... Even when a scene is hard to watch, Stanfield never is. And he’s a major reason “The Changeling” is worth sticking with. So far, at least.

Over the course of nine episodes (releasing weekly, but all screened for critics), “The Changeling” gently peels away at reality to reveal its fantastical secrets, some of which pay off more than others and which don’t altogether wrap up in a satisfying reveal. But at its best, the series is a vehicle for excellent performances (the less said about Samuel T. Herring the better, but he makes an absolute meal of limited screen time), breathtaking visuals, and narrative threads that beg to be pursued in search of eventual connection (the series shares some talent with “Station Eleven” and invokes the same puzzle-piece structure).

It's a puzzle-box show that stubbornly refuses to open; it suffers from streamer bloat (as so many series do); and after eight episodes, it ends on a cliffhanger, meaning our only hope for answers lies in an as-yet-announced renewal. .... Despite all of the aforementioned frustrations, The Changeling — the new Apple TV+ drama based on Victor LaValle's dark fantasy novel about motherhood, memory, and the awesome (sometimes dangerous) power of storytelling — took root in me, and I'm still thinking about it weeks later.