Switch

Year of release : 1991

Run time : 1h33m

Genre : Fantasy / Comedy

Cast : Ellen Barkin, Jimmy Smits, JoBeth Williams

The movie is written and directed by Blake Edwards. It is based on the 1959 play ' Goodbye Charlie' by George Axelrod, and the 1964 movie of the same name.

Steve Brooks, a misogynist and womanizer, is invited to a surprise party by his 3 ex lovers. Once there, after starting to have fun, the women drown him. Seeing him coming out of the bathroom,after they drowned him, they get scared and sh00t him.

In the afterlife, because he was a good man, but he was awful to women (so dumb!) he could go either way, heaven or hell, so he is sent back to find one woman who loves him. Satan proposes he should come back as a woman, to have a more difficult mission.

He remains in his apartment, lying to the landlord he is his step sister, Amanda, and goes to see Margo, the woman who shot him. She tells Margo she is Steve, and asks her to teach her how to be a woman, but not really, as the whole movie, Amanda acts like a man.It's more like, Margo buys Amanda clothes, and helps her get a new account with cosmetics magnate Sheila Faxton. Amanda can't walk in high heels,but does not change them for platforms.

The movie started well, but bored me, as we only see him keeping his old job (only in movies), and trying to get a new contract, so he is still thinking about his earth life, when all he / she should do is find a woman who loves him!

Most men hit on Amanda, including Steve's best friend, and she is still friends with the man, going out to bars with him, and playing basketball.

Amanda goes out with Sheila,whom she seems to like, but for some unknown reason, can't be intimate with (I guess due to the era the movie is from ).

After an hour and twenty minutes, she/he still didn't find a woman to love him,and the movie is still about Amanda's job and mundane problems (she got an ugly manly haircut,which grew back in 5 months!), and I started thinking, Amanda is gonna get pregnant, and that's the woman who'll love her! Guess what?! It doesn't take a genius to figure out the movie!

The characters are unlikeable, Steve because what he does to women, Amanda because of how she treats Sheila; Steve's best friend, Walter, who didn't take No for an answer, and gives it to her behind the scenes against her will,and even Margo, Margo because after Steve's body is discovered she plants the gun into his apartment so Amanda / Steve would get blamed for his own death!

One thing I liked about the movie were the women's clothes.

The acting was fine. Ellen Barkin is acting like a man the whole time. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for this performance.

I though Satan should have acted more reserved. He is acted by Bruce Payne, about whom I said looks like a fallen angel in 'Passenger 57'. All he had to do was act exactly the way he did in that movie. I don't know what kind of directions he got, but instead of looking like a hawk with its prey, when talking to God about Steve, he keeps on looking up,where God is supposed to be, smiling, smiling also when he is talking to Amanda, when all he had to do was act charming and cool,collected, the way he did in Passenger 57! The critics did love him, calling him 'a delightful wicked satan' (quote from Film Review).

I didn't like the soundtrack.

The movie was a flop (not a shocker there, as it's a movie about nothing! At the end of it, I wondered what it was about, feeling I wasted my time!) as it made 15.5 million dollars, against a budget of 14 million.

The movie received mostly negative reviews, the critics stating it had unfulfilled potential.

Switch is 7 days free on Cinemax Amazon Channel, Cinemax AppleTv Channel, and for rent on Amazon, AppleTv.

Rating : Could have been a contender !