Christmas movies are always a must around the holiday season, and every year new movies with interesting and new stories are released. On Nov.30, Netflix released its new holiday movie called Family Switch starring Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms.

The movie is about a family who, two days before Christmas, visit a planetarium during a rare planetary alignment and end up switching bodies with each other. It shows the family living a few days in each other’s shoes and helping each other succeed in their big “life changing” events of each day.

The movie does a great job of staying original even though they are using a pretty heavily used plot device. There are many movies that have used the switching places with family members/switching places in time, which it pays homage to in many different ways.

The Family Switch does an amazing job keeping the comedy throughout the entire movie, it stays fresh and funny without seeming like it is trying too hard to make you laugh. The movie, of course, deals with some deeper feelings and talks about the meaning of family and making meaningful connections with each other while also acknowledging that you are different people with different passions.

Though the CGI is really not great (the baby looked worse than the baby from Twilight), it makes up for it with fun packed action sequences and very cool lighting and animations. I also had a difficult time watching some scenes due to the second-hand embarrassment I felt, but if that isn’t something you struggle with then it won’t be an issue for you!

The Family Switch really makes you fall in love with the characters easily, especially Jess Walker (Garner) and CC Walker (Emma Myers). And you become invested in all of the storylines and character arcs very easily, (though I had a hard time feeling worried about the dad’s storyline as it just didn’t seem as important as the other characters’ experiences).

Though a bit predictable, the movie is very heartwarming and charming. It is definitely a movie I would recommend watching, as it is just an overall fun time and it is definitely a good movie to watch with your family or just with the people you care about.