Release Date: 5 August 2011 (USA) Runtime: USA: 112 min
Genres: Comedy Taglines: Who says men can't change?
A comedy in which a married father accidentally switches bodies with his best friend, leading to a series of wildly complex difficulties.
Director: David Dobkin
Writers: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
Original Music by John Debney
Cinematography by Eric Alan Edwards
Main Casts: Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman , Leslie Mann , Olivia Wilde Alan Arkin , Mircea Monroe,
Gregory Itzin , Ned Schmidtke , Lo Ming , Sydney Rouviere, Dax Griffin , Andrea Moore, Matt Cornwell ,
Craig Bierko
Storyline:
Growing up together, Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) and Dave (Jason Bateman) were inseparable best friends, but as the years have passed they've slowly drifted apart. While Dave is an overworked lawyer, husband and father of three, Mitch has remained a single, quasi-employed man-child who has never met a responsibility he liked. To Mitch, Dave has it all: beautiful wife Jamie (Leslie Mann), kids who adore him and a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm. To Dave, living Mitch's stress-free life without obligation or consequence would be a dream come true. Following a drunken night out together, Mitch and Dave's worlds are turned upside down when they wake up in each other's bodies and proceed to freak out. Despite the freedom from their normal routines and habits, the guys soon discover that each other's lives are nowhere near as rosy as they once seemed. Further complicating matters are Dave's sexy legal associate, Sabrina (Olivia Wilde) and Mitch's estranged father (Alan Arkin). With time not on their side, Mitch and Dave comically struggle to avoid completely destroying each other's lives before they can find a way to get their old ones back.
Box Office
Budget: $52,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $13,531,115 (USA) (7 August 2011) (2913 Screens)
Gross: $13,531,115 (USA) (7 August 2011)
Production Co: Big Kid Pictures, Original Film, Relativity Media
REVIEW
Crazy Change, 4 August 2011
In The Change-Up, Ryan Reynolds (Mitch) and Jason Bateman (Dave) are best friends who change bodies. Yes, you saw the same conceit in other comedies such as Freaky Friday, Vice Versa, and Like Father Like Son, but changing one's life into another's still plays well because so many of us at one time or another have wanted to make that change, usually for some movie star or tycoon.
This film has an understated comedic take by Bateman, who, like Steve Carell in Crazy Stupid Love, carries the story through improbable to believable. By the way, both films explore the approaching mid-lifer's need to be other than he is. Interestingly enough, in Change-UP Reynolds as the handsome slacker is paralleled by Ryan Gosling in Crazy as a handsome slacker.
You might guess living another life is not quite as enviable as it sounds with diapers to change on Dave's side and strange women on Mitch's. As it was in Crazy, the married man has the most to lose, and the film hangs its moral center on that premise.
While I am always put off by reliance on the scatological, and Change-Up relies on too many setups like that, such as babies shooting poop and a beautiful woman on a commode, the rest of the film relies on swift banter in the spirit of the screwball comedy and some character development among the principals that respects the difference among adults in their professional and personal lives.
Although Change-Up is sillier than Crazy, they both challenge the notion that life on the other side of marriage is happy. While the former has far raunchier scenes, they both take a serious subject-the survival of marriage, and laugh to agreeable endings that should make the current conservative craze feel in control of our destiny. Crazy, stupid change may promise sane, smart love
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