Supernatural Thriller 'The Changeover' Doesn't Change Up Its Genre Cliches
An evocative setting and a chewily fun performance from Timothy Spall as a mysterious and malevolent figure can't keep this New Zealand film from trafficking in tired tropes.
Based on the 1984 young adult novel by Margaret Mahy, a New Zealander who specialized in children's fantasy, arrives at a particularly fertile time for coming-of-age stories rooted in the supernatural, which does this film adaptation no favors. The notion of magic or witchcraft as a dangerous, sexually charged rite-of-passage into womanhood isn't particularly fresh in the year 2019, and the filmmakers here seem intent on reproducing the mild lustiness series. Here again is the story of a sensitive loner with a single parent, a beautiful and mysterious new boy, an isolated setting, and a threat they summon the chemistry to fight together. The rest is left to the details.
