The Switch (Review)

Oh, where has the risk gone? The premise and cast of The Switch seems to promise a better, wittier film than what has been released. The central idea is one that is rather sick and twisted, but the writer, directors and music take a movie which could have gone somewhere dangerous and unexpected but instead makes it another routine trip to Blandville.

Jason Bateman plays Wally, a neurotic man who has been terrified of telling his best friend Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) how he feels about her for years. Kassie drops the bomb on him that she is going to find a sperm donor so that she may have a child before her biological clock runs out. This conversation is actually quite witty and mildly cheerful and shows that Aniston is still a decent actress who has been trapped in romantic comedy purgatory for far too long. She finds a donor in Roland, as played by Patrick Wilson (he stole The A-Team earlier this year and could be something special if he got himself in some better movies). Roland is everything Wally is not: confident, strong, and manly. At the insemination party (now THERE’S a good time) Wally has a few too many and accidently spills Roland’s donation. He realizes the only solution, and thankfully we cut away beforehand. There is a moment during Wally’s internal debate as to what to do when the film provides its biggest laugh, after that you never do much more than grin.

Before her son is born Kassie decides to move away to Minnesota, only to come back to New York City seven years later. Not since Rent has a such a big move been negated so quickly. It is at this point when Wally meets his son (unbeknownst to him, he was too drunk to remember the night), and he notices a few eerie similarities between himself and the 6-year-old Sebastian. Eventually Wally puts two and two together with the help of his best friend Leonard (Jeff Goldblum, an actor who can best be described as “overqualified”). Sebastian and Wally start to really care for each other, and their father-son dynamic cannot be ignored.

Let me just say that the young actor who plays Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) is absolutely irresistible. Every scene between he and Bateman can do nothing but make you smile. One look at his face and I was considering saying “Screw it” and giving the film four stars. Sadly, I cannot do such a thing. The film around him so by-the-book and neutered that I must tell you all it is not worth seeing unless you are in the mood for a predictable, gutless romantic comedy. Of course Aniston would start to have feelings for Roland, what drama is there in a movie without the confident rival for the primary woman’s affection? Of course he plans to propose to her in a scene that resembles a romantic comedy perfect storm of conflict. What will Wally do? Will he finally man up and tell Kassie how he feels? If I said so that would be a spoiler, but if you don’t know the answer you probably haven’t seen a movie before. By the way, if you haven’t seen one, don’t start here. Watch a Spielberg film or something.

I haven’t even gotten to the most aggravating part of the film: and that is the musical score by Alex Wurman. Think about it: Jason Bateman has just hijacked his best friend’s pregnancy! That is HORRIFYING! The whole time the music tries to convince you that it’s just so goshdarn adorable. This is a film that should be exploring the darker side of what is going on, but instead settles for the abrasively cutesy acoustic guitar and high pitched piano. Any unpredictability the plot has goes out the window by the third act, and it gets to the point when we get a shot of Jason Bateman leaving his office building. I said in my head: “Aniston is will be outside waiting for him”. She was. That should never happen.

Jason Bateman is a veteran of much better, sharper and darker work than this one. He was the star of my favorite television show of all time Arrested Development, and he’s also been in everything from great films (Up in the Air, Juno) to decent ones (Extract, State of Play). Of the work of his that I’ve seen this is undoubtedly the worst, though I cannot speak for Teen Wolf Too or Couples Retreat. Here he does his best, and he breathes some life into a character that has no business being very sympathetic. Jennifer Aniston is basically playing Jennifer Aniston again, and if one looks at her recent films it becomes depressing. The Bounty Hunter? Love Happens? He’s Just Not That Into You? She hasn’t been in a movie that WASN’T a mediocre-to-bad romantic comedy since 2005. “Risk” is not a word in the Aniston dictionary. She’s also an executive producer of The Switch, so she has no interest in MAKING potentially exciting films either. She could be known as one of our better actresses, but she is perfectly fine in the safe zone. It’s a shame.

There are plenty of laughs to be had in a film about artificial insemination, but both The Switch and The Back-Up Plan (which came out earlier this year) settle for going the easy-breezy route and abandon all sense of danger. Allan Loeb was the writer here, and I see he also has penned the upcoming Wall Street 2. By this measuring stick that film will end with Gordon Gekko realizing the error of his ways in a rainstorm and coming home to embrace the family he has so grossly ignored. Cue the sweeping music.

Rating: (out of 4)