The Switch (***)
Directed by: Josh Gordon, Will Speck
Starring: Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Thomas Robinson, Jeff
Goldblum, Juliette Lewis, Patrick Wilson, Caroline Dhavernas
Seen: October 24th 2010
*** Out of ****
The Switch is about the poor schmuck who is in love forever but somehow
always unable to do anything about it. It is also the story then, of the woman
who drags the poor guy along as “best friend” for 13 years, not realising that
her confessions to him that he is the only person she can trust, among others, is
not doing him any favours.
Wally (Bateman) and Kassie (Aniston) have been friends for 6 years.
When Kassie decides it’s time to get pregnant by any means, Wallie postulates that
she’ll be screwed if she does this and truly falls in love right after,
probably in the fading hope that the two of them will get together at some
stage. When Kassie goes ahead with her plan she decides to not obtain the sperm
for her insemination from an anonymous donor, but someone who can be involved
in the kid’s life later on, and as such has a party hosted by her friend Debbie
(Lewis), where donor Roland (Wilson) will leave the ‘ingredient’ in the
bathroom for Kassie to ‘baste’ herself with it. (I have no idea of the accuracy
or validity of this, so let’s just say it flies as a plot idea…).
Kassie decides to move out of New York to raise the kid in more
child-friendly surrounds and, apart from the regulation Christmas/Birthday
cards she effectively disappears from Wally’s life for 7 years. When her son Sebastian
(Robinson) is 6, she accepts a job offer in New York and moves back,
immediately catching up with Wally. Wally immediately warms to Sebastian, and
he slowly starts realising how much like him the boy is – alarmingly so. The more
he thinks about it, in fact, the more he is sure that something must have gone
terribly wrong – he hijacked Kassie’s pregnancy 7 years ago but was blacked-out
drunk when he accidentally spilled Roland’s ‘offering’ into the sink and in a
desperate moment decided to replace it with his own.
The Switch is a sweet romantic/family comedy with some touching
scenes, with an example the scene where Wally meets Kassie again after 7 years:
it brings across his desperate longing for her to be in his life, in a very
subtle way. Bateman is perfect for the neurotic Wally, and even though I’m not
that fond of Aniston (her only great role for me being in Management with Steve
Zahn), she worked as Kassie, effectively bringing across the uncertain woman
who takes a great leap with her life direction. Wally’s best friend Leonard is
played with great comic touch by Jeff Goldblum, while the relatively scary Juliette
Lewis doesn’t do much to convince she’s anything above average as Kassie’s
friend Debbie. The young Thomas Robinson is a standout, as he manages to bring
alive a neurotic 6/7 year old with traits of Jason Bateman clearly visible in
almost everything he does.
While The Switch does not veer far off the (very) beaten path when it
comes to romantic comedies, the eventual plot unfolding presented here is more grounded
in reality than the usual lame over-the-top kind of romantic comedy ending. If you
like some honest heartfelt comedic drama with identifiable characters, The
Switch will not disappoint.
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