Family Switch is the fruitcake of Christmas movies. A little bit of everything goes into this one. Sometimes you take a bite, and the movie is delicious and sweet, and other times, you break your tooth on a Skittle or everlasting Gobstopper or whatever the hell ends up in fruitcakes these days. But tis the season, and empty sugared calories wrap this movie in their delicious bow.
It’s a two front war for mom Jess (Jennifer Garner) and dad Bill (Ed Helms), parents of the Walker family. Their kids CeeCee (Emma Myers) and Wyatt (Brady Noon) are growing up, and getting ready to leave their LA home. While bickering at Griffith Observatory looking at a couple days long planetary alignment, enigmatic Angelica (Rita Moreno) gets the kids and parents to claim neither could survive a day in the other’s shoes. Enigmatic characters in Christmas movies naturally have special powers…double special it turns out, because mom/daughter and dad/son switch bodies. And as each exclaims, they’re 17 Again on a Freaky Friday, 13 Going on 30 (Jennifer Garnerception!), or Big, you know the drill.
Here’s what’s in Family Switch’s fruitcake. We’ve got the two main switches, between polar opposite characters on both sides to make it easy for the audience. There’s even 10-20 minutes of a 3rd switch, the most fun one, between a baby and a puppy to include a rigid German neighbor/babysitter Rolf (Matthias Schweighöfer) for some reason. Christmas is peripherally involved in the story, clearly a Netflix producer note to sell the movie better. There’s class field trips, parties, soccer matches, car chases, a battle of the bands. And if that’s not enough, a snow filled LA on Christmas Day. By the end, I was just nodding like an idiot, going along with whatever 10 minute scene was happening now, because I knew something new would be coming in 10 minutes or so.
And at least everyone here is trying. Director McG really shot at Griffith Observatory, threw a pretty fun teen party, and puts on a decent movie concert when he could have CGI’ed everything and called it a day. Jennifer Gardner and Ed Helms sacrifice themselves on the altar of dignity, going for broad laughs and committing to some funny and some truly terrible bits to try to win everyone over. Brady Noon and Emma Myers are at least trying to do 2 different characters, with Noon doing a pretty good job in both lanes. And the supporting players like Schweighöfer, Helen Hong and effing Weezer really try to make this movie as fun as possible. Trying doesn’t exactly mean succeeding in Family Switch, but a little effort goes a long way to making this one more crowd pleasing that something spit out of an algorithm.
Now that we’ve switched a family, let’s go bigger and weirder. All the boys and girls in high schools switch bodies in “Bi School.” Dogs and cats switch with humans in the animated classic “Dog or Cat Person?” Or my personal favorite, conservative and liberal politicians switch bodies in Searchlight’s Best Picture Nominee “Compromise”. You’re welcome Hollywood. Send me the royalties anytime.