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The conditions for “Eid films” among Hollywood producers do not differ from others in the world. A light, entertaining film is always popular, and mastery of the various elements of the film, from directing to the performance of the actors, does not seem to be an essential requirement, but laughter is an essential aspect of it.
American filmmakers also try to place their films in elegant boxes of values, especially in the Christmas season, which falls at the end of December, and cinema screens and streaming platforms explode with Christmas films, which often revolve around family values and the necessity of forgiveness and preservation. blood ties.
In the movie “A Strange Family Incident” (Family Switch), screenwriter Victoria Strauss and director McG decided to add the value of societal civility by being open to others and searching for justifications for their behavior under the slogan “Put yourself in the place of the other.”
The story of the work revolves around the parents, Jess, played by (Jennifer Garner) and Bill Walker, played by (Ed Helms), who are doing their best to maintain contact with their two sons, “Wyatt”, played by (Brady Noon), and “Cissy”, played by (Brady Noon). (Emma Myers) The two boys have stepped into adolescence, which is followed by a natural tendency toward independence.
A chance meeting with a mysterious old woman causes a switch of bodies between the mother and her daughter, between the father and his son, and between the infant and the family dog. In addition to the disastrous nature of the change, this happens in one of the most important times of their lives, as the mother awaits a difficult test, in preparation for approval for a decisive career advancement.
The daughter plays an important match in the presence of a representative from the national team to choose the outstanding ones, and the son has an interview for admission to Yale University, and the father also participates in a show that may qualify him and his band to play and sing in Hollywood.
Old game
The game of exchanging bodies is almost completely exposed, as well as the paradoxes expected as a result of that switch, including the misunderstanding resulting from addressing the son as the father, or the family members waking up to find themselves sleeping in each other’s beds and others. Despite this, the filmmakers risked betting on the lightness of the films required in Holiday season and the names of heroes.
The idea for the film was adapted from a comic novel for children, written by Mary Rodgers, and first published in 1972. It was presented in a number of films, in the years 1976, 1995, 2003, and 2018. The novel deals with a day in the life of 13-year-old Annabelle Andrews and her mother, who spend the day in each other’s bodies.
The idea of solutions in bodies found a wide scope in cinema, especially in science fiction films, starting with the movie “Robot Cop” in 1987 by director Peter Weller, and not ending with aliens seizing a human body and using it to control the Earth in the “Men in the Black Hole” series starring will Smith.
The film reveals the state of terror experienced by the American middle class due to the loss of children and exposure to a life of loneliness in old age, which is a common thing in society, as there are the usual sorrows of a teenager leaving the family home.
There is a huge drama behind the work crisis, but it is not limited to the children leaving their homes only, but rather in the loss of the ability to dialogue and communicate within the same family, either due to the lack of the ability to dialogue among the parents or the great difference made by digital technology.
The most elaborate scene in the work was the one in which the parents tried to celebrate birthdays with their children, but they left, refusing to celebrate, to their devices between a laptop and virtual reality viewing glasses, which is a rejection of the reality of society and resorting to imagination far from the control of that reality.
Acting or singing?
The cast presents a completely different performance state than what we can call natural acting. There is a state of “artificiality” that dominated the performance of everyone, starting with the veteran Jennifer Gardner and ending with the teenage actor Brady Noon, and perhaps that performance carries a degree of lyrical formula and significance in the dialogue and movement. It basically goes back to the equation agreed upon in advance between the creator of the work and his audience, which is that we are facing an entertaining film, which may belong more to holiday and event screenings in theaters than to cinema.
Director McG did not exhaust his cameras by trying to create cinematic eloquence or interesting visual sentences, as much as he was eager for the paradoxes that were reflected in the bodies of his actors in their impersonation of others. The girl suffers from wearing high-heeled shoes and is forced to attend an event that belongs to the mother because it is in her image, and the son in… The father’s body cannot keep up with the family’s running, and he falls to the ground in pain after a few steps.
The experiment of exchanging bodies until near the end of the work did not succeed in eliminating the family crises, which are summarized in the adolescents’ desire for independence and leaving the family, and the family’s attempts to pass the four tests, whether in football, promotion at work, or admission to Yale University, were not successful, which is a completely normal failure. Because the body as a human form cannot be separated from the content that constitutes the personal qualities and experiences required for life.
Despite this, the creators of the work decide to jump beyond logic and push imaginative and weak dramatic solutions with three family members. Despite the failure in the mother’s presentation in presenting her project, she succeeds, and despite the catastrophic performance of the daughter, the mother appears to be the subject of the decisive football match, and the talent scout is impressed. With her morals, he decides to give her another chance, and the father succeeds in reaching a Hollywood contractor by telling him the truth about the strange family incident that led to the switching of bodies, while Yale University refuses to accept the son.
A noble idea
Perhaps the noble idea that the creators of the work wanted to encourage, which is for a person to put himself in the place of another, to make excuses for him and understand his motives, is the most beautiful thing in the work, but presenting it during the Christmas movie season led to ease in making the work itself.
It remains that the film’s references to this complementary relationship between family members is what distinguishes the work, as the father is surprised when he goes to school while he is in his son’s body, when a colleague of his habitually bullies him, and because that father was a prominent figure in his high school in the past, he deals with the situation. With skill and strength, she avenges his son and protects him from bullying later on.
Despite the largest share of the relationship between mother and daughter, the semi-comic details did not rise to the level of laughter, and were consumed in paradoxes that were almost preserved and not just expected.
