Welcome to A-Z Movie Reviews. Every Sunday, for the next several months, I will be posting a review of a film in my home movie collection. How it works is, I will be reviewing movies in alphabetical order until I get to the letter Z (Yes, I do have a film that ends in Z). Now I realize there are many ways to alphabetize a film collection but this is mine so don’t judge me. This is simply for fun.
I like a lot of campy movies that people haven’t really heard of and I think unless you’re a fan of Dakota Johnson’s then Date And Switch is definitely one you haven’t heard of.
What it’s about:
Two high-school seniors make a pact to help each other lose their virginity before their prom, but their mission takes an unexpected turn when one announces that he’s gay.
Mike (Nicholas Braun), and Matt (Hunter Cope) have been best friends since they were kids. Both are in their senior year of high school and feeling frustrated about the lack of sexual activity happening in their lives. Mike comes up with the idea to break up with their current girlfriends Em (Johnson) and Ava (Sarah Hyland) and then they do something odd by making a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. In honor of reaching their goal, they plan to celebrate by eating a massive pot brownie they made. Pretty weird premise and also sorta cliché right? Well, not really.
The difference with this story is that Matt broke up with his girlfriend because he’s gay. Matt comes out to Mike and things get a bit interesting. At first Mike is taken aback by having this information because he feels like his whole friendship is going to change as well as the pact they made to help the other lose their virginity. Mike goes to Em for advice and she tells him that Matt really needs a friend to support him and boy does he do that and more.
Mike doesn’t know how to handle the fact that Matt is gay so he goes a little overboard in his attempts to be a supportive friend. He takes him to several gay clubs and is just really over the top in his mission to help him find someone. I will say Mike’s heart is in the right place but he just goes about the whole situation in the wrong way.
Matt doesn’t want any of this. He knows that Mike is just trying to be a good friend but he’s dealing with a lot after coming out. Matt isn’t on a mission to find someone and the pact to lose his virginity really isn’t that important to him. Although he has come out to Mike and Em, he still hasn’t told his family particularly his super macho dad.
While I really like this movie, it would have been nice to see them focus a bit more on Matt and his journey. That was really my only issue with it. The entirety of the film deals with Mike and his attempt to adjust to Matt telling him he’s gay. I get that it was a shock for him but, Matt made a pretty big decision in his life and that should have been shown. To be honest I feel like there was more of Mike and his dad’s relationship showcased.
Mike’s dad was great but, I think if they were going to show the relationship between Mike and his dad, they needed to spend a little more time showing Matt and his dad. Him coming out to his parents was a pretty important scene that I think we should have had.
All in all, Date and Switch is an entertaining film. I loved the bromance between Matt and Mike. I laughed a lot at the corny jokes and of course I always love Dakota. Her character Em was the voice of reason and a great friend to both Matty and Mike.
Other Thoughts
- I love Nicholas Braun he is just the cutest.
- That brownie went through so much. I cannot believe they still ate it.
- Does the bro-code still apply if your best friend is gay? Matt basically telling Mike that Em was off limits, didn’t make sense to me.
- It was a dick move for Mike to out Matt to his parents the way he did.
- I kinda wanted Pay-Per-View to perform at the prom.
