The body-swap comedy was a staple of ‘80s comedy but never really found a regular home in theatres past that decade because of one reason: almost all of those films were universally rancid. And while The Change-Up gets points for not being a bad film, it can’t be considered a good one merely because the genre has been so horrid for so long that something that’s merely mediocre looks like a comedic masterpiece by comparison.
The Change-Up has a fairly simple premise. Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) is a swinging bachelor who spends his days getting stoned and pursing the fair sex with what passes for a career as a struggling actor. Dave (Jason Bateman) is a family man with a loving wife (Leslie Mann) and a sterling career as a corporate attorney. When a fateful night out drinking leaves the two needing to urinate in the same fountain, both wish for one another’s lives and end up getting them. Now, forced to live lives they never have had to, Mitch and Dave are stuck in each other’s bodies up until they can find a way to reverse whatever magic put them there.
The film doesn’t do much with the premise, giving the standard body swap formulaic ending about how you should want what you have and that the grass isn’t greener on the other side. There are some good jokes to be found, and the plot is interesting enough to at least not be boring, but there isn’t much that hasn’t been before in either R-rated comedy or in the genre itself. This could almost be a PG-13 film because most of the language and nudity feel tacked on. There’s nothing about the plot that screams that it needs to be as crass as it is; it’s there to prevent it from feeling like a Freaky Friday clone.
Even key moments, including several of Leslie Mann’s big dramatic moments, feel cribbed from her character in Knocked Up from a similar moment. There’s nothing original or even engaging about the material as it feels like a collection of scenes from other, better films in various sub-genres of comedy that have a body-swap wrapper thrown onto it. But one thing happens in the film that’s remarkable: Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman switch characters when they switch personalities.
The one thing that usually rings hollow about body swap comedies is that the actors generally don’t change their performances all that much when they swap personalities. Not in The Change-Up, where no matter what body Dave and Mitch inhabit they act the same. It means Jason Bateman goes from being his usual neurotic self to being able to let loose like Reynolds does while Reynolds plays the same kind of character Bateman usually does. It’s remarkable because normally the genre doesn’t have this sort of fidelity to character.
Mitch and Dave still act like how they normally would regardless of which body they’re in; it gives the film credibility and internal consistency. When Mitch fouls up an important meeting in Dave’s body it’s rather humorous because Jason Bateman uses the personality Ryan Reynolds has brought to the film as opposed to merely maintaining his usual comedic persona and letting the audience infer it. It keeps the film interesting when by all rights it shouldn’t be.
The Change-Up isn’t a comedic masterpiece but it’s a high-water mark for the body-swap genre by its sheer ability to not be a bad film.
Director: David Dobkin
Notable Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin, Gergory Itzin
Writer(s): Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
