Just when you thought the body-switch comedy had thoughtfully been put out of its misery, along comes this delightful froth on a daydream from indie-graduate Winick (Tadpole), an endearing package of Eighties nostalgia, girlish giggles, sharp comedy and sweet romance.
Basically, a gender-swapped Big, 13 Going On 30 sees insecure teen Jenna Rink suffer a humiliating birthday party at the hands of her Mean Girls classmates. Her injured response involves chasing away Matt, the besotted boy-next-door, locking herself in a cupboard and wishing to be “thirty, flirty and thriving”. Et voila, Jenna awakens to discover that it’s no longer 1987 and she now inhabits the body of the very lovely Jennifer Garner.
So, no more need to shove tissue-paper down the front of her t-shirt, or indeed, to beg for pocket-money as her thirty year old self is a high-powered, stiletto-heeled magazine editor, an accomplished, apparently friendless uber-bitch. But just as you’re wondering ‘what’s the downside?’ Jenna decides she’d quite like to be wholesome again, enlisting the help of childhood pal Matt, who, lo and behold, has transformed into the rough-hewn, smouldering, drool-worthy, impossibly handsome (okay, I’ll stop now) Mark Ruffalo.
Less hen party than pyjama party, this effervescent affair is largely carried by Garner’s beautifully coltish charm. As an adolescent trapped in a body of a thirty-year-old (yeah right, she wishes) she’s gorgeously gawky and brilliantly funny, wringing the material for all it’s worth and making even the most retch-making dialogue - “We need to remember what used to be good” – seem, well, less retch-making. Naturally, she’s ably assisted by Mr. Mmmm-for-Mark Ruffalo as her bemused, bewitched love interest and Judy Greer as a neurotic, back-stabbing colleague.
The result is absolute bubblegum, but flavoursome nonetheless. Besides, any movie that says it’s cool to be thirty is fine by me. Hurrah, I always knew that if I just lived long enough I’d come back into fashion.