SWITCH
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This is a tasteless, sexist film about
why it is bad to be a male chauvinist in a strange world that
bears little resemblance to mine. A brainless man is
murdered and returns to earth as a brainless woman. SWITCH
is Blake Edwards begin part of the problem and pretending he
is part of the solution. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4).
I think everybody knows that Blake Edwards is a successful filmmaker. I get the impression that he retreated into Beverly Hills some time around when hula hoops were in and he has not stepped out into the real world since. That is fine by me. He writes funny movies like the Clouseau films set in a never-Never-Land-Europe or set in his hermetically sealed world where you can go to one store to buy clothes and spend $41,000, and where if you catch someone by surprise she has only $3000 in her purse. (These are plot elements from SWITCH.) That is fine. Edwards bragging about how much money people in his class have is no worse than Bob Fosse bragging about how much sex he gets in ALL THAT JAZZ. Edwards has made a lot of people laugh and he is welcome to his world. Where the rub comes is where he starts making comedies with supposed social relevance. In SWITCH, Edwards tackles the thorny issue of male chauvinism in an Edwards-Never-Land among his usual assortment of under-dressed buxom women and mannequin men. The sexism in his world is the blatant stupid sexism of boors and is of an entirely different character from the subtle and ambiguous sexism that occurs in my world.
Steve Brooks (played by Perry King) is successful in advertising. ("Advertising" is Hollywood shorthand for he isn't a policeman and he doesn't make films. Ever notice how often advertising shows up as an occupation in films. How many films can you name where the main character is in plumbing supply or auto parts or has made a career of software engineering? How many people work for a corporation with more than one level of management above them?) Brooks is going about his humdrum life--he is having a hot tub party with three naked women--when he is murdered. Heaven, appalled by his sexism, sends him back to earth where he must stay until he can find a woman to like him. But he is sent back as a woman. This situation has a lot of possibilities, some comedic, some silly, some interesting, some controversial. Edwards toys with most of the possibilities, but flinches every time he gets too close to ideas that might be interesting or controversial. Mostly we see Amanda Brooks (Ellen Barkin as the female reincarnation) feeling herself, feeling other women, and wearing skirts too short and sitting with her legs apart like a man so the camera can get crotch shots. Most irritating is the misfire running gag of her stumbling around on high-heeled shoes. It is intended to get funnier each time and it simply gets more and more annoying. Apparently high-heeled shoes are the only kind women wear in Edwards-Never-Land. Barkin goes through the movie oscillating between playing a really boorish male chauvinist and getting fed up with men treating her the way she treats women. Edwards's idea of what sexism is about seems to be more connected with men who get too much sex or who proposition strange women in the street, actions more common in Edwards-Never-Land than in my world. It does not seem to have much to do with equal pay for equal work or even about filmmakers doing films about naked women in hot tubs. Incidentally, equal pay is notably NOT and issue in this film. The main character is paid more as a woman than she was as a man for the same job.
SWITCH is a film that leaves a very bad taste in your mouth, and more so the more you think about the film. SWITCH this one off. For the sake of a good, if not very well-chosen, acting job by Barkin and for some competence in being entertaining I rate this film a charitable -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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