Jennifer Garneras Jess WalkerThe story
About Family Switch
A few days before Christmas, a busy architect mother, her music-loving husband and their two teenagers are barely speaking the same language. After a family outing to watch a rare cosmic event through an observatory telescope, the parents wake up in their children's bodies and the children in theirs, just as a make-or-break work pitch, a university interview and a football match in front of a national-team scout all land in the same week. Living each other's lives, they have to cover for one another and find a way to swap back before the holiday.
The CineClaus verdict
A body swap with tinsel on it.
Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms wake up as their teenagers, and the fun is watching grown actors play sulky while the young cast play harassed, which Emma Myers does especially well. Christmas is mostly the wrapping around a frantic week of pitches, interviews and a big match.
Critics were lukewarm and had a point, because the jokes are broad and the lessons arrive on schedule. It does like its family, though, and parents watching with teenagers will recognise more of themselves than they might want to.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: some swearing and innuendo but nothing nasty, so fine for most children of ten and up, though the jokes about work pitches and university interviews land best with teenagers and their parents.
Content advice & accessibility
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official PG certificate, and never looser than it.
