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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