The Change-Up is a tired premise for comedy. Let’s call it the Freaky Friday for guys who like R-rated comedies. This movie has a Judd Apatow feel to it, but was actually directed by David Dobkin. Interestingly (or maybe only to me), Leslie Mann, who is Judd Apatow’s wife and is in most of his movies, plays a supporting role in this movie. Normally, if I knew that an actress was in movies that her director husband made, I would be rolling my eyes, but Leslie Mann has proven herself to be a gifted comedic actress time and time again. I would like to see her take the lead in her own movie someday. But I digress, this movie is based on the premise once cleverly described by the comedian Garry Shandling: “I’m single and my best friend is married and we are both envious of each others lifestyle”.
The story centers around two life long friends, Married Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman; who would of thought back in the 80’s that he would end up the most famous Bateman) and Mitch Planko (played by Ryan Reynolds; his signature sarcastic wit fits perfectly for this role). Dave is a successful lawyer on the verge of becoming partner at his law firm. He struggles to balance his demanding work and home life which involves twin new borns. He is the picture of haggard. Mitch is an occasional actor who spends most of his day lying around getting high and having sexual encounters with questionable women. His life doesn’t appear to be nearly as stressful as Dave’s. [sidenote: it’s interesting to see, as I read a lot of movie reviews, critics perspectives of who has the better lifestyle. I found that it tended to be gender based. Female critics found Dave’s life more appealing and male critics found Mitch’s life more appealing. There seems to be something appealing about arrested adolescence for men that women find repulsive. Totally unscientific observation]. After a night out of drinking and envying each others life, Dave and Mitch find themselves relieving themselves in a fountain while exclaiming that they wish they had each other’s life. Somehow this causes them to wake up in each other’s bodies the next morning.
The antics that follow are funny for it’s R-rated shock comedy, but it mainly uses the fish-out-of-water cliches of every film of this type. Somehow, despite being totally inept living each other’s life, their unique perspectives allows them to excel where in reality they would have been fired immediately. I find this a tiresome and awkward cliche in all fish-out-of-water comedies. Still, what can I say? I laughed and laughed a lot. I think this has more to do with how much I enjoy Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds as performers. They make a good comedy team and play off each other well. Some of the shock gags are over the line, but that is what they were going for.
Some of the funniest scenes are when each tries to deal with each other’s love life. Mitch has always admired Dave’s beautiful wife (the aforementioned Leslie Mann), but when the realities of having a wife who is way too comfortable around her husband of 20 years hit him, his libido is quickly curbed. Dave is not so lucky, he uses his now Mitch persona to go out with his legal assistant Sabrina (the impossibly beautiful Olivia Wilde) who he has always had a crush on. She turns out to be more than he can handle. I won’t give any spoilers, but the resolutions are once again cliche and tired.
I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this movie. I really did. It’s just that i wasn’t impressed by it. Sometimes just laughing through an entire movie is enough, but it’s not something I would qualify as a cinematic experience. Anyone who knows me knows how much I am against watching movies from home. Movies on a TV screen is not a movie. A true movie going experience must happen in a theater. This one, I would have been just as happy to watch this on my Ipad.
I give this film ** stars (I can’t in good conscience give it more stars)
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