Small town drab Ontario, mid-eighties, The Smiths poster on the bedroom wall, and a soft spot for France's New Wave cinema. Classic class nerd. Four-eyed and heartbreakingly awkward, Tim (Ed Oxenbould) finds a glimmer of hope to his sad sack existence with foreign exchange student Stephane (Avan Jogia). But instead of bileting a dissonant, trench-coated, intellectual poet, his mail ordered bride is a chain-smoking, acid washed greaseball, more interested in bedding the graduating class than discussing great cinema.
Add bumbling parents, a ridiculously mustachioed gym teacher, an obvious love interest to the mix, and everything's in place for a feel good teen RomCom. Jogia is wonderful as the strutting fish out of water, obliviously embarrassing his local chaperone to no end. Yet the cookie cutter plot holds few surprises, as it methodically moves from initial, flirtatious fun, to some oil slicked drama mid-film, before bringing everyone and everything together in a tidy full circle. There's life in the characters, the film has some good laughs, but several interesting ideas are left dangling, and it lacks a knockout punch.
The "Exchange" is certainly not without charm, but in the end, a tad underwhelming.
