Review: The Change Up

Published by Itchy City on Friday 9th September 2011. Link here.

  

David Dobkin, who gave the world ‘Wedding Crashers’, is back with another American slapstick cum rom-com bromance. Just to change things up, this one’s called… ‘The Change Up’.

The film opens on high powered lawyer and father of three Dave, up at 3am to do the nappy change (yes, there’s poo involved), whilst his infant son bangs his head violently and repeatedly against the bars of his cot. Frankly, I don’t blame the kid: the concept of this film inspires kamikaze in even the tiniest of minds.

So we’ve got Dave (aka Jason Bateman, the dude from ‘Arrested Development’), who’s bored by his great job, frustrated by his hot wife and irritated by his charming children. Ungrateful b*****. His best mate is Mitch, a stoned, out-of-work actor who shags fit girls and does fun stuff all day, but whose life essentially sucks. Possibly not the most stretching role for Ryan Reynolds, aka the actor who just divorced Scarlett Johansson.

Anyway, guess what? They want each other’s lives. It’s like someone’s prayer has been answered, and ‘Freaky Friday’ was never made. Twice. Or ‘13 going on 30’. This concept has been made into a film so many times, actress Leslie Mann, who plays Dave’s hot wife has already been in one: Zac Ephron’s soppy ‘17 again’. If ‘The Change Up’ is taking the piss out of the genre, they were being pretty darn subtle about it, because they stuck to the formula like… well like something sticky. Here’s how it went:

So they wish they were each other, something magicky happens: a lightning strike, a drunk fairy, this time peeing in a fountain, and next morning they look in the mirror, shock, horror, lah-dee-dah, it’s come true. They live each other’s lives, it’s ‘surprisingly’ difficult being the other person, and hilarity ensues. They live, they love, they learn about themselves. There’s a romantic subplot, in this case the feisty Olivia Wilde, Thirteen from ‘House’, and there is at least one schmaltzy montage. So far, so painfully obvious.

Thirteen from 'House', aka Olivia Wilde, aka the hot girl in the film. Smokin'.

But somewhere along the way, this film delivers. Specifically, on the ‘hilarity ensues’ step. Damn is it funny. The physical humour is scatological but solid (insert constipation joke here), and involves babies and blenders, always a winning combo, but the joy is in the one liners. Mid fight: ‘get my hands of you!’, mid conversation: ‘you know, the cancer list. The first three women you’d shag if your wife dropped dead of cancer’. Itchy are compiling one already.