It was Mary Rodgers, daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and author of the scathing memoir Shy, who came up with the original book and 1976 screenplay of a mother/teen daughter body switch, “Freaky Friday,” remade three times so far and inspiration for many, many variations, including “Freaky,” with a teen girl switching bodies with a serial killer. In this version, the whole family switches.
Perhaps because of our familiarity with the Jenga blocks storyline of body switch films, building them up just to enjoy the falling down, there’s no need for scene-setting to establish the stakes. We know there will be some mystical force, shock and then understanding, panic as they substitute for each other, hilarity as they mess up, a growing sense of cooperation, and then new understandings, empathy, and the relief of being back.
It takes less than six minutes for “Family Switch” to line up the Jenga blocks to be knocked over. The Walker family is under a lot of stress. The parents are concerned about losing touch with the teenagers. Architect mother Jess (Garner) and amiable high school music teacher Bill (Ed Helms) are crestfallen to learn that their children are not excited to see them dress up like candy canes and dance to the Jackson 5. “You used to love to make our family Christmas videos,” Jess says. “Key word,” their soccer-star daughter CC (Emma Myers) tells them, “used to like.”
CC’s younger brother, math and science-brainiac Wyatt (Brady Noon), coolly says he prefers digital life to anything reality has to offer. The other family members are a baby named Miles and an incontinent but beloved dog named Pickles. Just to make sure there is no confusion about the movie’s themes when the family visits a planetarium super-telescope to view a “quintuple planetary alignment, a galactic confluence of the highest order of magnitude, there’s also time for a couple, “You don’t know how hard my life is” or “I wish I could be you for a while” moments. When they break the telescope, they’re hit with a mysterious force, and the next morning, they wake up switched, Jess and CC, Bill and Wyatt, and Miles and Pickles.