Family Swap (French title: Le sens de la famille, "Sense of Family") is a 2021 French comedy film directed by Jean-Patrick Benes.
Alain (Franck Dubosc) and Sophie (Alexandra Lamy) are a married couple whose relationship is on the rocks. They also have a hard time raising their kids, the moody teenagers Valentine (Mathilde Roehrich) and Léo (Nils Othenin-Girard), and the bratty Chacha (Rose de Kervenoaël). After the family's failed attempt at celebrating Chacha's 7th birthday at an amusement park, they sleep at an hotel and wake up in the morning to find they've all swapped bodies with one another. They navigate their personal and professional problems in that state, which causes them to understand each other better.
Tropes:
- All Girls Like Ponies: 7-year-old Chacha wants a pony. She gets a llama as a gift and gets told it's a pony, so she's happy with it.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Alain makes a wish that he had a different family than the one he has; he gets his wish granted by having his entire family involuntarily swapping bodies with each other.
- Distant Finale: The story skips ahead about a year and shows that the family has been coping fine with their seemingly random and incurable body-swapping for all that time. The movie ends there.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: A family of five (mom, dad, two daughters and one son) wakes up one day to discover they've all swapped bodies with one another. Granny and a pet llama get added to the mix as the family finds there are nights where they swap again and others where nothing changes. The ending implies the true cause of all this is the snow globe Chacha got as a birthday gift, with the body-swapping occurring whenever she shakes it, but the family never even suspects this.
- Juxtaposed Reflection Poster: The poster shows the body-swapped family standing on a pier. They are reflected on the water, which shows them as they really are without the body-swapping shenanigans.
- Llama Loogie: Chacha asks for a pony and gets a llama, which becomes the family pet. The llama occasionally spits at the other characters for comedy. The last shot of the movie has Alain spit at one of his kids, revealing the llama's conscience is in his body as a result of it getting embroiled in the family's "Freaky Friday" Flip.
- New Media Are Evil: After granny wakes up to discover what's going on and that she's become involved in the body-swap, she goes on a short rant blaming the family's predicament on things like microwaves and wi-fi.
- No Ending: The family never discovers how to fix their body-swapping problem and have to live with it. However, they have gone through a lot of Character Development and get along with each other much better than at the start of the movie.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Alain and Sophie's teenage daughter Valentine is constantly texting on her phone to her parents' chagrin.
- Right on Queue: The movie opens with the family looking miserable as they wait in line to get on a ride at an amusement park. Just as their turn comes up, Chacha needs to go to the bathroom, but Alain is fed up and doesn't want to let her, so he goes on the ride by himself in a huff, while the rest of the family goes with Chacha.
- The Stoner: The slacker Léo likes holing up in his bedroom to smoke pot. When he's caught doing it in grandma's body, he uses the excuse that it's therapeutic.
- They Would Cut You Up: Sophie thinks it's better not to go to the doctors about their body-swapping because they would want to dissect them. She is proven correct late in the movie when she goes to the doctors out of desperation; while some of them are for finding a cure, one convinces them to go the dissection route for the sake of scientific research. She gets strapped to a chair, but the rest of the family busts her out.
