Switzerland is beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that its beauty far, far outshines one of the greatest tennis players of all time parkouring over a glacier with an Oscar-winning, globally renowned actor. This is the clear message of the latest Switzerland Tourism campaign.
The video features Switzerland’s own tennis hero Roger Federer teaming up with multi-award winning film star Anne Hathaway, who – in a fictitious storyline, it should be stated – embark on a road trip covering the Grand Tour of Switzerland, to make a promotional tourism video.
The Grand Tour is a 1,643-kilometre route that shows off some of the country’s most incredible sights and scenery. As a result, Roger and Anne undertake all kinds of epic adventures – hopping over glaciers, synchronised swimming through icy glacial waters – only to find they barely feature in the final cut of the new commercial, which instead focuses purely on the gorgeousness of Switzerland.
Poor Roger and Anne “look like ants” in the finished version, as Anne points out, with the director choosing to max-out on glistening lakes, towering mountains and sweeping meadows, rather than the two A-list celebs. Surprisingly, the mega-famous pairing aren’t too happy at being thrown to the cutting room floor, and they thrash it out with the director and his editing team, to no avail.
One of the team even commends Roger’s “amazing abs” on display in a swimming scene – after mercilessly editing them out, that is. Spoiler alert: no abs, amazing or otherwise, actually feature in this advert, so don’t get too excited.
As Anne astutely observes, “Well, now I know why Bob passed”, cheekily referencing Robert De Niro’s performance in a Switzerland Tourism campaign last year.
Sad as it may be for the duo, you can’t help but realise that the director and his crew have a point. Switzerland is staggeringly beautiful and the scenery on the Grand Tour really does deserve to be seen in “the wide shots”, as Roger puts it, or – even better – in real life.
So, take the hint and get out there to see all this marvellous stuff in-person. And if you need a starting point as to how and where, look no further than our tips on things to do around Switzerland or dive straight in to our city guides on Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern.