With full frontal nudity from every member of the cast, this ranks amongst one of the more explicit British films to hit the big screens. Like 'The Ice Storm', though far narrower in scope, this film uses the dramatic device of the 'key party', in this instance as the catalyst for the subsequent breakdown in the relationships between a group of friends. The scenario is ideal for a low-budget, character based drama, but the Big Swap's fundamental flaw is in neglecting to show the relationship between the friends BEFORE the actual key party. With so many characters, we haven't got to know any of them well enough for the ensuing events to have as much resonance as they could. Instead, the script resorts to the lazy device of an introductory voice-over, with the main body of the film parenthesised in a similar denouement which perfunctorily ties up the loose-ends. The build up, as the characters conceive of the idea of the 'big swap', looks like a cross between Reservoir Dogs and an After Eights advert; the obtrusively mobile camera's only virtue is as a distraction from some truly awful dialog, as the character's 'candid and liberal' views on sex are expounded. After this, the film starts getting interesting, though for the most part characterisation is with broadly painted brushstrokes, further highlighted by the closed world which they all inhabit. With the only interaction we ever see between them being related to the aftermath of the swap, it is never quite clear how they all became friends in the first place. None of them are particularly appealing, and the timely dramatic ending is rather contrived. A good idea, poorly executed. Fairly depressing viewing, but strangely watchable and never boring.
