‘Family Switch’ Review: Jennifer Garner And Ed Helms Hit The Body Swap Genre With Refreshingly Amusing Results
30.11.2023 - 05:55
/ deadline.com
At this point, the body switch comedy genre is pretty well worn. Big, Freaky Friday (twice), 17 Again, 13 Going On 30, etc. have pretty much defined and exhausted what can be done with the concept to keep it fresh. The latter 2004 hit actually starred Jennifer Garner, who is now returning to the genre again, this time as producer and star of Netflix‘s holiday comedy, Family Switch.
This time around, the formula is expanded to have an entire family experience a life altering cosmic moment and become their opposites. The parents become their kids, the kids become their parents, even the baby becomes the French Bulldog. Guess what? It works, even offering some LOL moments along the way in a movie that isn’t trying to reinvent anything here, just find a new angle to squeeze some more life out of it.
Inspired by the book Bedtime For Mommy by author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who also is responsible for the source material on Garner’s last Netflix family outing, Yes Day, this film adaptation is actually quite different, as the fully family body switch idea is added here to what was originally a sweet book about the kid telling the parent bedtime stories.
Here, a game cast goes in for a lot of physical gags and challenging situations designed to demonstrate the chasm between the teens and their parents, with the ultimate goal, of course, to show it takes some drastic action to truly understand what each is going through, sort of a “walk a mile in my shoes” scenario.
Jess Walker (Garner) is a bit of a workaholic architect about to propose a major new project to her colleagues. She is the top earner in the family, which includes husband Bill (Ed Helms), a frustrated musician and music teacher who is on the precipice of living his