To celebrate the release of the sequel to arguably the best body swap movie of all time (see entry #2), we’re revitalising this list to deliver you our favourites in this subgenre that never misses.
Freakier Friday follows up the Jamie Curtis Lee and Lindsay Lohan 2003 classic and will be released on 8th August, as lightning strikes twice with double the body swap chaos.
1. Being John Malkovich
Writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze make for a memorably twisted partnership in this cult classic slice of surrealism. John Cusack plays the struggling, down-at-heel puppeteer who discovers a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich (playing himself). The filmmakers exploit the premise for maximum zaniness but there are sobering philosophical undercurrents too – how much can we truly know ourselves, and what's the nature of our own psychological autonomy? It's a premise that's both funny and ever-so-slightly terrifying, and a game Malkovich clearly relishes the ability to send up his screen image, notably in the famous scene when he portals himself with dizzying results.
2. Freaky Friday (2003)
The original Freaky Friday from 1976, starring Jodie Foster, is the prototype for all body swap movies. It got a superior remake in 2003 from director Mark Waters (Mean Girls) with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan starring. The two actors play a mother/daughter combo who end up swapping bodies, a premise that allows for some giddily enjoyable set-pieces. Curtis, in particular, has great fun tapping into her comic abilities, playing a slang-talking, melodramatic teen queen who is appalled to have been transplanted into an older body. Lohan's performance is perhaps a tad more subtle, conveying a sense of mature, adult observation that belies her outward appearance.
3. Self/Less (2015)
Ryan Reynolds and Sir Ben Kingsley are unlikely big-screen collaborators. And the sense of disorientation increases when one attempts to get to grips with the premise of this bonkers thriller. Kingsley plays a terminal billionaire who is determined to prolong his existence by swapping his consciousness into another body. The subject: Reynolds as the guy who has essentially given up his body to cover his daughter's medical bills. Harold Pinter, it ain't, but there's a degree of oddball fun watching the fast-talking Reynolds attempting to simulate the mannerisms of one of the UK's most esteemed classical actors.
4. Your Name (2016)
This poignant anime was a huge box office success in its native Japan, grossing 25 billion Yen (the equivalent of $224 million in the USA and Canada). Released by Japanese institution Toho (the studio behind the Godzilla franchise), it tells of two teenagers, one located in a big city high school and the other living in the countryside, who, magically, are able to swap into one another's bodies. Living vicariously through each other, they learn about life, love and the universe, the drama playing out against some truly luscious visuals. It proved to be another triumph for director Makoto Shinkai, a veteran anime and manga artist.
5. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
When this Jumanji sequel/reboot was announced, there was a fair amount of outcry from those who cherished the 1995 original, starring the late Robin Williams. We needn't have worried – Welcome to the Jungle proved to be a hell of a lot wittier and more imaginative than we dared to imagine. When a group of teens are sucked into Jumanji (upgraded from a board game to a video game), they're substituted with avatars. This is where the magic of the film resides as four disparate actors, Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Karen Gillan and Kevin Hart, fashion delightful chemistry with each other. Johnson, in particular, is a riot embodying a scrawny teen who can't believe he's swapped into the oversized muscles of a genuine man-mountain.
6. 17 Again
It’s not all switching from someone else’s body, sometimes it’s about reverting back to your younger self, which is what happens in the teen fantasy movie, 17 Again – and we’re obsessed. The late Matthew Perry stars as the 37-year-old Mike O’Donnell, former high school basketball champion whose professional career was scuppered by a teen pregnancy with his girlfriend Scarlet. Twenty years on, Scarlet is filing for a divorce and Mike has just missed out on a probation. But then a weird accounter with a janitor seems him transformed to his younger self, played by teen heartthrob of the time (it was 2009, guys!) Zac Efron.
7. 13 Going on 30
From going back in time to leaping forward, Gary Winick’s 2004 13 Going On 30 stars Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo in this beautiful beauty of an early noughties hit. Humiliated by the popular girls at her own birthday party, nerdy Jenna Rink makes a wish to be “thirty and flirty and thriving”. As per all body swap movies, she gets her wish. With a total box office profit of $96 million, 13 Going On 30 was a huge commercial success. A sign of the times, it was one of 2004’s most rented DVDs, too. Now that’s so 2000s.
8. Big
Big walked so 13 Going On 30 and 17 Again could run. Starring Tom Hanks, this 1988 classic sees 13-year-old Josh Baskin dejected and embarrassed when trying to impress a girl and being denied going on a carnival ride because he’s too short. A wish made using a seemingly switched off Zoltar fortune-teller machine comes true when Josh wakes up the next day transformed into a dashing 32-year-old Tom Hanks. This was the film that earned Tom Hanks his first Oscars nomination for Best Actor, as well as scooping up a nomination for Best Picture.
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