Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In body-swap comedies, the acting is its own kind of brazen put-on fun. Adult actors get to channel their inner innocent kid; young actors get to channel their “serious” adult.
And that’s why, ever since the original “Freaky Friday” (1976) brought this genre into being, it’s been marked by instances of true Hollywood artistry, like Tom Hanks’ classic performance in “Big” (though that wasn’t technically a swap comedy) or the lyrically funny bedlam that Jennifer Garner brought off in “13 Going on 30,” one of the best movies of its year.
But even that was 20 years ago. In the decades since, dozens — hundreds — of Hollywood comedies have wallowed in a baseline joke of American middle-class behavior, repeating it again and again like a sacred trope.
Today, the movies teach us, adults already are overgrown children: creatures of impulse and appetite and development arrested by their immersion in pop culture.
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