Defying logic

Switch is a French action thriller starring that lumbering wooden legend of French cinema, Eric Cantona, and it’s awful, but at least it is one of my favourite kinds of awful film: so awful it’s a triumph. If I were ever invited to lecture at film school — remarkably, I have yet to receive such an invite — the first thing I’d say is: girls, boys, although your narrative shouldn’t be predictable, it must add up in terms of what has gone before. Your characters shouldn’t change personalities overnight. Also, it always helps if the plot actually makes sense. This narrative follows no known logic: not internal, not external, and not even the sort of logic that dithers out on the patio and has a smoke while trying to make up its mind. It’s as if the script writer (Jean-Christophe Grangé) looked at logic and thought: ‘Nah, can’t be doing with any of that’, and the director (Frédéric Schoendoerffer) said: ‘A film without any logic? I’m up for that!’ and then they got financed by whom? A logic-hating consortium? I mean, getting a film like this made has to be a triumph, right?

Switch opens with Montreal resident Sophie (Karine Vanasse) going off for lunch with a chance acquaintance she meets at a job interview. Sophie doesn’t have much going for her. She’s a fashion designer with little work. She lives alone and hasn’t got a bloke. The acquaintance suggests she should try out the house-swap website Switch.com. Twenty-four hours later Sophie is on her way to a magnificent apartment in Paris, having swapped house keys with a woman called Bénédicte. Sophie enjoys an idyllic first day, marvelling at her luck, as well as cycling along the Seine, and looking up at the Eiffel Tower, just so we don’t forget where we are, and imagine this is a film set in Lima.