Why Did I Watch Netflix’s ‘Family Switch’?
A continuing holiday series
My son is in a play, so that gives my wife and me a few nights a week to live it up, middle-aged style. That means we have a nice dinner, maybe a drink, and retire to our home to watch “The Crown” or, as we did last night, enjoy an absurd Christmas movie. This one was Netflix’s Family Switch, starring Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms.
The plot is pretty upfront: The Walker family — Jess, Bill, and their kids CeeCee (Emma Myers), Wyatt (Brady Noon), and Miles — switch bodies with each other during “a rare planetary alignment.” The toddler Miles switches places with the family dog, which results in some bizarre CGI performances. Also, the movie seems to think a dog could walk on its hind legs if it had a human mind.
First place, this does not seem at all like a Christmas movie. There’s a tree and decorations, but the story takes place a few days before Christmas and school is still open. Jess has a major client presentation at work, and this is not set up as “oh, she had to choose between her family and her career on the holiday.” It just happens. Jess has a ladies dinner night at her house scheduled, but again, there is no practical mention of the holidays. You could remove the holiday trappings and this is just another body swap movie. Die Hard is more of a Christmas story (I’m serious).
The movie also has zero stakes, and before you tell me that’s how Christmas movies work, I refer you to It’s A Wonderful Life or any version of A Christmas Carol. Yeah, yeah, the family is growing apart, because the kids are typical teenagers and don’t want to join in a silly dance routine for the Christmas video. George Bailey was facing bankruptcy and prison and almost killed himself.
Here, the looming question is whether the already successful Jess will get a promotion to partner at her architecture firm — not whether she keeps her job but whether she will prosper even more. The 15-year-old Wyatt is up for early admission to Yale, but he’ll be fine if he doesn’t get in yet. The film keeps telling us “Yale will still be there.” Soccer star CeeCee wants to impress a national talent scout. She’ll also be fine if she doesn’t (spoiler alert: she does).
Bill has a big concert performance for his goofy dad band that is obviously of no importance to anyone. I struggled with the Bill character, because he’s this laidback band teacher at a public school. That’s great and all, but the family lives in a palatial Los Angeles house that must cost at least $8 million. I’m all for the “wife as major breadwinner” angle, but Bill is hardly Donna Reed. Jess does everything. She clearly pays the mortgage (Bill’s public school salary would barely cover property taxes), coordinates the family’s activities, as well as cooks and cleans. Meanwhile, Bill has the spare time (and money) to devote to restoring a classic car in the garage. You gotta be kidding me. I know way too many men who complain about their wives buying a damn latte, but men are so often depicted in media as having expensive, time-consuming hobbies.
Films like Family Switch also annoy me because of the clearly invisible support staff, most of whom would be people of color. There is literally no way Jess keeps the house that spotless, nor would she have the time to consistently prepare elaborate meals every day. Bill is too busy in the garage to cut the damn grass, and the Walkers don’t have an average suburban lawn. They would need to hire professionals to maintain the English-style garden. And who the hell put up these Christmas lights? It sure wasn’t Bill because he’s an idiot.
The big joke is that Bill in Wyatt’s body is more of a goofy teen than Wyatt himself. While Jess in CeeCee’s body is obviously a mature adult. In general, Ed Helms and Jennifer Garner are one of those obviously mismatched couples that’s common in these family movies. I can’t complain, I guess, because I married well above my station, so perhaps this is realistic. However, I do my fair share of cooking, and I personally contact the nice people who put up our holiday lights. Robinsons get up on ladders for nobody.
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We liked your review and would probably enjoy this movie simply for the level of cleverness.
However, we understand that Netflix recently canceled its Palestinian series, and a boycott has been called.
We have stopped our Netflix subscription.
Still appreciate good reviews like this. Thank you.
On another note, Mrs Mild and I went to see the Miyazaki movie, The Boy and The Heron (would recommend). We sat thru what seemed like 30 minutes of previews, most of which were either horror movies or the "underdog(s) who beat the odds". One of them had an actual dog as a part of the story. These were advertised as "Based on the Book/True Story/Real Events". None of them were anything Mrs Mild or I would be interested in.