Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Jennifer Garner is not new to playing a teenager waking up in an older woman’s body; she played the memorable Jenna Rink in “13 Going on 30.” So, Garner was probably the first person creators of “Family Switch” thought about while deciding to remake the 2020 French comedy “Family Swap” AKA “Le sens de la famille,” which follows a family’s adventures as the members find themselves in each other’s bodies.

Written by Victoria Strouse, Adam Sztykiel, and Amy Krouse Rosenthal, “Family Switch” is a Christmas-themed body-swap comedy directed by McG, whose last feature film directorial was “The Babysitter: Killer Queen”. “Family Switch” is essentially like Lindsay Lohan’s “Freaky Friday,” but with the entire family of six switching bodies, not just the mother and daughter. In the funniest twist, there’s a baby that ends up being in the pet puppy’s body.

The opening scene for the film doesn’t really inspire much confidence – Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms play the married couple Jess and Bill, who are dressed like Christmas candy, dancing over-enthusiastically to a remixed version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” for their kids, who couldn’t care less. While Garner’s dance is cute, Ed Helms tries too hard to pull off a Jim Carrey-like impression and is more annoying than funny. The couple has a baby called Miles and two teen kids: soccer enthusiast CC (Emma Myers), aiming for the national team, and the nerdy Wyatt (Brady Noon), an asocial high-school sophomore who has already secured an interview with Yale University. Jess is an overworked working mom who wants daughter CC to prioritize grades over soccer. On the other hand, Bill, a laid-back music teacher, hopes Wyatt will enjoy life like other kids his age and not skip his time at school to head off to college. The parents and kids obviously don’t get along and get a lesson in understanding each other due to freaky twist of waking up in each other’s bodies.

The decision to portray an athlete sister and a studious brother was a nice change from the usual jock brother and geek sister trope. Jennifer Garner and Emma Myers are adorable as the bickering mother-daughter duo, Jess and CC, and it’s essentially their performances that makes “Family Switch” a fun Christmas watch. Jennifer’s Jess is a helicopter mom, much like her role in her last Netflix family-comedy “Yes Day”, where she wasn’t likable at all, but in “Family Switch” she switches to more endearing shade of motherhood. Brady Noon delivers an entertaining transformation from an introverted shy teen to playing a confident middle-aged man stuck in a teen’s body, but his scenes are not as amusing due to poor comedic writing. Matthias Schweighöfer was hilarious in his small cameo as Rolf, a German dog-trainer who is the family’s neighbor and tasked with babysitting Miles and the dog, while everybody else figures out how to reverse the swapping.

The special effects involving baby Miles acting like a dog after the switch were terrible. It reminded me of “Son of the Mask,” which has a rating of less than 3 out of 10 on IMDb, so that’s not a compliment. The creators didn’t have to go over the top with the baby’s dog-like antics, because it just makes the scenes jarring and not funny. In fact, despite being a comedy, “Family Switch” is barely funny but shines best in some of the more emotional moments and simple bonding scenes between the characters. Like when CC is playing soccer with her friends or the entire family happily dances at a high-school party or when they all jam to a Christmas song.

Rating: 5.5 on 10. You can stream “Family Switch” on Netflix.

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