BEFORE: Yes, I know I've taken a strong stance against these "body-switching" movies in the past. There's no body-switching in the real world, so I've regarded them as bits of narrative fluff that serve no purpose, and have preferred to stick to more realistic things, such as superhero movies. But then right there, I'm some kind of hypocrite, right? Anyway the door kind of got opened by "13 Going on 30" and then in December I caved on "Family Switch", so really, I blame Jennifer Garner for all of this. It's like on "Law & Order" when a lawyer loses a case because they accidentally mentioned the evidence that they themselves didn't want to come forward. So I'm caving in, I saw that by programming a couple films in January with Jamie Lee Curtis, there was an opportunity here - and seeing that the chain would put this film on a FRIDAY, well come on, that just sealed the deal. I can't pass up a tie-in like that - so "The Thursday Murder Club" ended up on a Sunday, that's a small price to pay. Let's hope the chain knows what it's doing here.
Jamie Lee Curtis carries over from "Borderlands".
THE PLOT: Dr. Tess Coleman and her daughter, Anna, do not get along with each other. However, things take a turn when, in a freak accident, they switch bodies and are forced to live each other's lives.
AFTER: OK, sure "Family Switch" was a lot of things, primarily a Christmas movie, but I see now it owes its whole existence to "Freaky Friday", which itself owes its whole existence to the 1976 version with Jodie Foster. (Oh, sure, THAT one I've seen. No reason to revisit it.) I forgot, there was also that body-switching body-horror film "Freaky", and same. If we didn't have THIS 2003 remake, then we just wouldn't have THAT. So much like my Instagram account, we're also celebrating #FlashbackFriday today and going back through the mists of time to when Lindsay Lohan was a teenager, before all the troubles began. This film kind of represents the career high point for her, it was her most successful film, and she got the award for Breakthrough Performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards. I don't remember what exactly happened after that, but she had fashion deals and record albums and eventually she opened a Greek beach resort, but also she had a reputation for being "difficult" to work with and went through some form of career suicide. I can look into this further but not right now - it looks like the chain's going to bring Lindsay around again in February so if the turning point was the 2006 film "Just My Luck", we can discuss that then.
The original plan was to have her play a Goth girl here, creating that much more contrast between her and her mother, but then they changed it so she played a teen rocker, in conflict with her more conservative psychologist mother. It must be a nightmare having a therapist for a mother because you'll always be wondering if she's analyzing you, plus she probably always wants to talk about your feelings. Jeez, you probably just want to make it through the day at high school and not get in trouble again. Teen Anna here is always in trouble at school, despite her best efforts the teachers seem especially harsh and also she's feuding with her former friend Stacy, but things start looking up when she meets hot motorcycle boy Jake in detention.
NITPICK POINT: Anna somehow manages to get detention twice in one day - once for calling her English teacher a dictator after he gave her an "F" for her essay on the book "1984" and then again after she pelted Stacy with a volleyball in gym class. OK, first of all, what school gives detention in the MIDDLE of the day? We see her trading lunches with the teacher in charge of detention - isn't detention an after-school thing? (I wouldn't know...). Wouldn't having detention in the middle of the day cause her to miss a class, and wouldn't teachers be too busy with classes to host detention then? Can't she just serve her sentences concurrently after school is over?
Anna's mother Tess is also getting married, three years after the family lost Anna's father. Ryan seems great, no issues there except that he hasn't really connected with Anna yet. It's the busy week before the wedding, there's the rehearsal dinner and the catering still needs to be finalized, this would be the WORST possible time for some kind of cosmic body-switching lesson to come around, so yeah, guess what? Anna and Tess learn the hard way not to eat fortune cookies during an earthquake, or something. We all know that ancient Chinese magic can manifest itself if your family orders too many appetizers, right? Just get the egg rolls and the crab rangoons and move on, you don't need chicken wings if you're going to be ordering sesame chicken later. Jeezus, is this what we thought about Chinese-American restaurant owners in 2003, that they hold the secrets to magic body-swapping rituals? This is worse than those racist Calgon commercials where water softener was described as an "ancient Chinese secret" at the laundromat.
Anyway, you know the drill, at midnight the Chinese magic kicks in, and mother and daughter wake up in each other's bodies, and there's a long panic where they can't quite figure out how this is happening and why. More importantly, how do they fix it? The fortune cookie says they won't switch back until they gain the understanding they lack, namely they need to see the world from each other's perspective for a while, and this involves the mother going to school in her daughter's body and the daughter going to work in her mother's body and scarring her therapy patients for life. Also Anna suddenly has access to credit cards and goes on a shopping spree and glam-up that will have no financial repercussions for anyone ever. Anna also gets to drive the family sportscar, so yeah, umm, where's the downside here? Weren't we supposed to be learning something?
Anna (as her mother) goes to a parent-teacher conference and learns that her little brother secretly looks up to her. OK, making some progress. Tess (as her daughter) totally understands "Hamlet" but still gets an "F", proving that Anna's teacher really is out to get her. They each try to sabotage the other's relationships, but Anna's got a good reason, she just doesn't want to be kissed (or more) by her future step-father - and Tess doesn't think Jake is right for Anna, but the more time she spends with him, the more she connects with him, so maybe she can soften on this point. Did we mention he rides a motorcycle? Everything's scheduled to come to a head when Anna's band has an audition at the House of Blues on the SAME night as Tess's wedding rehearsal dinner. Does this really all take place on one Friday? It kind of feels like a lot, maybe three days worth of plotline is packed into one very freaky Friday, just me? Don't forget that there was also an appearance on a live talk show to promote Tess's book, what could possibly go wrong there?
Anna's bandmates try to kidnap her from the rehearsal dinner - of course they don't realize the person they're kidnapping currently has no musical talent. But cool new Dad Ryan solves things by pointing out that the kids need to come first, so Anna SHOULD skip out on the dinner, and Tess should go too, because that's an event that's important to her daughter. One big problem, though, Anna can't play the guitar because the musical talent is in her mother's body right now. Poor Tess is up on stage and doesn't know how to rock - but Anna unplugs her amp and plays the guitar solo backstage, and this is a clever solution. However, NITPICK POINT, wouldn't the crowd be able to tell that her amateurish strumming doesn't match up with the music? The band probably wouldn't be hired if the judges thought the guitar solo wasn't being played live.
I remember that "Family Switch" got this plot-point wrong, there's a holiday concert at the end where the father (Ed Helms) is playing guitar. But at this point in the film the son's soul was inside the father's body, and the father was the music teacher, the son in the father's body should NOT have been able to play the guitar. OK, most people probably wouldn't notice or care, but I did.
All is set right when they return to the rehearsal dinner, and having seen things from the other person's perspective, understanding is achieved, forgiveness is possible, and acts of selflessness allow the Chinese soul transfer to be reversed - and the guests barely notice the accompanying earthquake. Well, it is Los Angeles so everyone's probably used to a little tremor now and again. And it's OK that Anna impulsively cancelled the catering for the wedding, because they know a restaurant that does catering, just hold the fortune cookies, please.
Really, this could have been a lot worse, in so many cringey ways.
Directed by Mark Waters (director of "Head Over Heels" and "Just Like Heaven")
Also starring Lindsay Lohan (last seen in "Mean Girls" (2024)), Mark Harmon (last seen in "Wyatt Earp"), Harold Gould (last seen in "Beloved"), Chad Michael Murray (last seen in "Fruitvale Station"), Stephen Tobolowsky (last seen in "Murder in the First"), Christina Vidal (last seen in "The Guilty"), Ryan Malgarini (last seen in "The United States of Leland"), Haley Hudson (last seen in "Marley & Me"), Rosalind Chao (last seen in "Together Together"), Lucille Soong (last heard in "Raya and the Last Dragon"), Willie Garson (last seen in "Walk of Shame"), Dina Spybey-Waters (last seen in "Just Like Heaven"), Julie Gonzalo (last seen in "Must Love Dogs"), Christina Marie Walter, Lu Elrod (last seen in "Beautiful"), Lorna Scott (ditto), Heather Hach, Chris Carlberg, Danny Rubin, Hayden Tank (last seen in "Rules of Engagement"), Cayden Boyd (last seen in "Dog"), Marc McClure (last seen in "Coach Carter"), Chris Heuisler, Jeffrey Marcus (last seen in "Just Like Heaven"), William Caploe (ditto), Lee Burns (ditto), Jacqueline Heinze (last seen in "Addicted to Love"), Mary Ellen Trainor (last seen in "Moonlight Mile"), Erica Gimpel (last seen in "King of New York"), Daniel Raymont (last seen in "Rough Night"), Veronica Brooks, Amir Derakh,
RATING: 6 out of 10 platinum credit cards
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