Family Switch Parent Guide

It’s a hectic time for the Walker family. Mom (Jennifer Garner) has a career-defining presentation coming up, CC (Emma Myers) is playing a championship soccer match in front of a national team recruiter, Wyatt (Brady Noon) has an interview for early admission to Yale, and Dad (Ed Helms) has an opportunity for his band to play on TV. With so much going on in their individual lives, family members have become disconnected, all living in their own worlds. But after a mysterious incident at the planetarium, the Walkers discover that they have switched bodies with each other. Will they be able to help each other succeed and mend their relationships or will they be stuck in the wrong bodies forever?

We’ve all seen a body swap movie. It’s not an original idea. And I think that’s what sums up this film: there’s nothing new here. The only adjective I can conjure up is bland. Family Switch is so innocuously boring and banal that I honestly could not tell you any details of what I just watched ten minutes ago. I think my brain treated it like white noise and I passed into some sort of waking REM state. It’s not offensively bad by any means, that would at least make it attention-grabbing. Instead, Family Switch chose to be the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry.

I have a few gripes with this film, aside from the blatant unoriginality. But my main one is the use of Christmas. This is touted as a holiday movie and it does take place around that time, but the season has no impact on the plot at all. The story could have taken place at any point in the school year, and nothing would change. It’s almost like Netflix decided at the last minute that they needed something for a December release date, so director McG (yes, that’s his name; not a typo) added a Christmas tree to the Walker’s house and called it a day. Viewers looking for something festive will be disappointed.

Aside from being painfully boring and predictable, I wouldn’t recommend this film for children, despite the PG rating. There was more swearing than I expected, as well as an out of place sexual reference and some teen partying (though alcohol is never specified in that scene). There’s also a lot of potty humor, which feels forced and cringy. I wish I could say this is an innocuous family holiday film perfect for background noise, but it can’t manage to even add enough festive cheer to make it worth the runtime.