For A Change (Would Do You Good), an upbeat ditty about, well, nothing, Gondry places a cast of underground actors under the jurisdiction of Sheryl Crow. She's a harmless little angel who likes to have her way with people. Smirking all the while, Sheryl enacts change upon a group of six people, all related to each other within the fabled degrees of separation. Each is zapped unwittingly into the others' lives.
The story begins with each character under stress from their daily routine. The pregnant Woman #1 suffers a nasty wound while wallpapering. Andy Dick (her husband) is likewise stressed at work with his co-worker Molly Shannon. Molly's husband, Man #1, is a frustrated cab driver. (Ellen Degeneres is his hapless passenger. She is a comic bystander in Sheryl's spin cycle.) Woman #1's neighbor, Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse), is noticeably tired of her garage band life. And Man #2 is Woman #1's annoyed doctor.
Noticing their troubles, Sheryl begins swapping their places. She also helps them out a bit with a few personal touches (i.e. connecting Andy Dick with his wife on the phone), and some happy coincidences. The pawns experience each other's lives and the frustrations that are attached. After a few switches, Molly exclaims, "What is going on here?"
More swaps later and everybody is back in their original place. Man #1 finally picks up Molly, and both are very pleased to see each other. Andy, his wife, and the doctor are in the hospital as she has labor pains. Heather is the only one still displeased, to which Sheryl pops in and remedies the situation.
Of course, the tale is merely half of the video. Gondry tells the story as if one were switching live frames of a Viewmaster. As each scene flips, the scene itself moves out of the frame. To accomplish this, the camera was rigged so that it could be rotated along the Viewmaster wheel's axis. As one scene flips to the next on the screen, the camera likewise rotates. At the end of the video, the large wheel of images is spun to reveal the turnarounds Sheryl made; although Heather is still frumpy. Sheryl's response? "Perfect!"
This was the second video commissioned for the song. The first version was directed by Lance Acord and Sheryl Crow. Michel Gondry's version is not on the DVD The Very Best of Sheryl Crow, released November 2003; the first version is.
