Self/Less

There’s two ways a brain-swap – or if you prefer, body-swap – movie can go: either the actors being swapped ham their characters up so much it’s obvious when one of them is playing the other, or the actors both just play themselves (well, their characters) and leave the whole “same body, different mind” side of things to take care of itself. Fortunately, despite some fairly broad work from Ben Kingsley in the opening scenes as a billionaire New York property developer, when he has his mind transferred to what he thinks is a brand new blank slate body (Ryan Reynolds) Reynolds plays him more as a man feeling his way through a new situation than as an obvious version of the character Kingsley played.
It’d be nice to think this was some subtle commentary on the way our bodies shape our personalities, but it’s more likely that it was simply because this isn’t really a film that’s all that interested in the ramifications of rich old people being able to transfer their minds into the bodies of the poor. Yes, it turns out Reynolds’ character wasn’t a freshly grown body as advertised but was a war vet (the body comes equipped with combat reflexes that’ll come in handy later) who sold his body for reasons that you wouldn’t really think would require the second half to the film to be a string of shoot-outs and chase sequences and yet here we are. It’s hard to know whether to be pleased that this at least has a few ideas thrown into the mix or depressed that those ideas are only touched on at best; at least Reynolds’ solid performance as a man in over his (brand new) head gives this fantastic tale some much needs grounding.