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Wedding
Crashers (2005)
director David Dobkin came together with
two of the writers of The Hangover
(2009) and purposely pushed the envelope on the body-switch subgenre,
which has
traditionally been regarded as family-friendly and rated PG in the US,
not
R-rated. The idea of mother and daughter or father and son swapping
life stages
and responsibilities has been done and redone to mixed comical effect.
But two
friends, best buddies since childhood, getting a taste of each other’s
challenges and delights, is something more interesting. Overall, I
think the
filmmakers were right. The adult rating has enabled a more honest and
thorough
examination of the opposing ways lives and careers develop. Reynolds
plays
Mitch Planko, the handsomer of the two, who is still single, out on the
prowl
and living in a foodless apartment overstuffed with bongs. Bateman is
Dave
Lockwood, the precocious, hardworking career lawyer who is about to
'make
partner' (a regular convention in American screen offerings!) and has a
lovely wife,
a smart daughter and two twins who wake up frequently between evening
and dawn.
Mitch and
Dave keep
in touch on the phone and catch up now and then. On a night of
drinking, Dave
is particularly stressed over work and the fact that he cancelled
date night
with his wife. He looks over at the laidback Mitch, who has freedom, no
cares and
women (Tatiana is hot and wild and is scheduled for weekly 3am
booty-calls).
Dave confesses a wish about being able to dabble in such a way of life.
He
could score with the hot para-legal from work, Sabrina (a gorgeous
Olivia
Wilde), for example. In the meantime, Mitch eyes Dave’s respectable
job, big
home, well-stocked fridge, sexy wife, adorable children and overall
stability. It
is suitable then they should stumble onto a statue of a Greek goddess
and pee
together into a fountain, wishing to have each other’s life. More
curious is
that the wishes are granted. At first it is sheer chaos, panic and
confusion.
After they realise that they have switched bodies, they try to
convince Dave’s
wife Jamie (Leslie Mann) of the situation, but to no avail. They are
then forced
to compromise and live out each other’s lives as best as possible.
While Mitch
(in Dave’s body) has to contend with big shot lawyers, boardrooms, fat
books
and yes that hot para-legal, Dave attends the set of a movie where
two-bit
actor Mitch is meant to ‘act’ it up.
The arc
of empathy is drawn out nicely
from here on, until the end of the movie, with ups and downs and quite
a few
laughs along the way. Despite the occasional and unfortunate bodily-fuction gags, I was quite impressed by how far the writing
takes the
film, which is refreshingly frank and fierce in parts. I also think Reynolds and Bateman
both do
a great job, not only in establishing their
characters, but then switching and emulating each other too. Without this coming off
convincingly the premise of The Change-Up
would have bluntly collapsed. I also think the two female interests,
particularly Leslie Mann, are strong and well played. This is a great
feel-good
movie, without too much effort expected from the viewer. Sit back and
go with
it.
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