Saturday, January 21, 2012

Character Inconsistencies & The Change-Up


I recently watched The Change-Up, a wacky body switch story. Here's a brief summary from Wikipedia:

Mitch and Dave were inseparable best friends, but as the years have passed, they slowly drifted apart. Dave is an overworked lawyer, husband, and father of three children and Mitch is a single, quasi-employed man-child who has never met a responsibility he liked. To Mitch, Dave has it all: his beautiful wife and three children who adore him and a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm. To Dave, living Mitch's stress-free life without obligation or consequence would be a dream come true.

They get drunk, pee in a fountain, wish for the other life, and BAM! Switcheroo. Ryan Reynolds is my biggest Hollywood crush, so I can look past the predictable premise and constant F-bombs. I can even chuckle at the gross-out humor (I have three sons). But one thing I couldn't get past were the character inconsistencies.

Here's what I mean. *Spoiler Alert* In the end, as expected, the family man missed his family and wanted his old life back. He even volunteered to quit his job as a lawyer. His wife cried when she said, "I don't want you to quit your job. I just want you home for dinner."

Ok Hollywood, that would've worked if the opening had shown a negligent father who never spent time with his wife and kids. But the opening showed a father at home who bathed his twins while his other daughter read him a book. He was laughing and playing with his kids, and his wife was the one who arrived home late.

In one scene, there's even mention of a dinner song. Dinner song? If he's never home for dinner, how is it that they have a dinner song? Hollywood, if I'm missing something, call me!

The silver lining? 1) Gawking at Ryan Reynolds for two hours, and 2) I was reminded that the character arc needs to make sense. Yes? Yes.

Ryan, I still love you. No worries. But now I need to watch The Proposal again so I can get The Change-Up out of my head.

If you've seen The Change-Up, did this bug you? Have you noticed problems like this in any other movies you've seen? And if you have a Hollywood crush, inquiring minds want to know who it is!

23 comments:

  1. No haven't come across The Change-up, I'm busy trying to stop this happening too abruptly in my own work. :0)

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  2. That type of humor doesn't click with me, so I haven't seen it. But character inconsistencies can kill any story.

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  3. Ryan Reynolds is my 17 year old step daughters big time movie crush. I haven't seen this one yet, but I predict i will be shortly! :) It still surprises me when Hollywood makes an oops, I mean with the big teams and huge investments they make, you'd think they'd have all their bases covered but so often you see movies with potential fall flat because of unsympathetic or in this case, inconsistent characters.

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  4. That's too bad. I love Jason Bateman, but not in a crush sort of way. I thought he was hilarious in Arrested Development. My one, true Hollywood BF is Chris Hemsworth because, well...*cough* the shirtless scene in Thor *cough*. I guess that makes me pretty shallow when it comes to Hollywood guys!

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  5. Julie, you and your hilarious Ryan Reynolds fixation kill me. What if Ryan played Mr. Darcy? You might swoon to death.

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  6. Little things like that drive me nuts! I hate when the characters aren't true to themselves or the story line. But at least you get to watch the Proposal again! :)

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  7. I haven't seen it myself & I probably won't unless it makes it onto Starz. But, yes, because I'm so critical now as a writer, that would bug the f-bomb outta me! But you know, most viewers wouldn't even pick up on that. They're just there for mindless entertainment. And a little ogle time for old Ryan!

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  8. I haven't seen "The Change Up" but I do adore Ryan Reynolds. (Drool!) And I loved the Proposal!!!! 'Nough said.

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  9. I haven't seen this movie, but I do have a leetle crush on Matt Damon. But only because Paul Walker doesn't do enough movies...

    Becca @ The Bookshelf Muse

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  10. Guess, it's good i missed this one.

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  11. Julie, I'm laughing right now. I do this to movies I watch too! And books. My hubby calls me the book detective. I'm always saying, "wait, they wouldn't have because of...or they did this earlier." I wanted to see this movie, and definitely will... just to see what you mean. I look for more. Hollywood... what were you thinking!"

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  12. I do this all the time when I read or watch films. I'm not a high paid executive, so if I can spot these things, why can't the people who are paid to?

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  13. Oh yes Matt Damon, Mark Walberg. Great insight as usual Julie. Now go watch something with Mark Wahlburg in and post a huge pic for me :)

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  14. I haven't seen this, yet. I love the actors, though. I'll have to put it on my netflix, but I'll probably be disappointed now. lol

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  15. Jason Bateman was my childhood crush because of his humor. Ryan is terribly funny and even terribly-y sexy.

    I often watch for these things in movies too. One thing about being a writer is not being able to dumb down the brain and just accept whatever is in front of us.

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  16. I haven't seen this movie nor even heard of it. I'm not really into this "body swap" kind of thing though. But I really do like to stare at Ryan Reynolds. wooo! hehe

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  17. Peeing in a fountain? Gross!

    There are so many body swap movies.

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  18. This reminds of The Family Man with Nicholas Cage a little bit. I loved that movie.

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  19. I have noticed tidbits like this missing in other films. Guess big budget has an allowance to get away with that. (And yes, I saw this movie and thought the same thing. My hubby told me to stop thinking and just watch the movie. lol)

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  20. This would have driven me crazy, too. It sounds like the directors were trying to have their cake and eat it, too, so to speak--give the audience the clear good guy/bad guy contrast between the two main characters, but also show a nice character arc for the "good guy," even though that meant contradicting some of the information they used to *create* said good guy. Sounds fun nonetheless!

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  21. ROFL! Great post. I guess a hot MC lets you get away with more? Not the moral? I better read it again... He he.

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  22. I haven't seen this one but I looooved The Proposal even if Ryan Reynolds (sorry) is not my favorite. My favorite "actor" is Leo, but purely on looks, still love me some Keanu Reeves. And ugh on the inconsistencies. What a way to confuse and anger your audience!

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  23. I never saw this, but I heard it got terrible reviews... LOL! And it's too bad b/c I really like both the actors--RR & JB. But yes. The character arc has to make sense. :p

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