'Switch' characters deliver more than you'd expect from typical rom-com
"The Switch" could easily have been just another cheesy romantic comedy with gratuitous voice-over narrations and two standard musical montages where the lyrics explain exactly how the main characters are feeling - just in case the actors didn't convey that.
But "The Switch" has been well-written by Alan Loeb (based on Jeffrey Eugenides' short story "Baster"), who gives each character careful and specific motivations. Plus, the team of well-cast actors elevates the mediocre elements of the story into something meaningful, sincere and even joyful.
At the start, New Yorkers Wally and Kassie have been best buds for years.
He clearly would like to take their relationship out of the friend zone and on to something more romantic.
She clearly would not. He's way too neurotic, she thinks, and he moans when he eats, and possesses the sartorial taste of a junior high school dweeb.
With her biological clock pounding, Kassie opts to become a mother by way of a sperm donor, a handsome, muscular, married teacher named Roland, a superb specimen of maleness. Kassie gets so excited, she throws a pregnancy party just before a doctor inseminates her.
But at that party, a despondent Wally gets blitzed on alcohol and herbal drugs, then accidentally (yeah, right) spills Roland's contribution for the evening in Kassie's bathroom.
Panicked, Wally replaces Roland's reproductive sample with his own, but is too blitzed to remember anything the next morning.
Kassie becomes pregnant, moves to Minnesota, then returns to New York seven years later with her son Sebastian. Right away, we can tell he's way too neurotic and moans when he eats.
Jason Bateman plays Wally not as an overdone caricature afflicted with comic neuroses, but as a regular guy dealing with specific personality traits.
Jennifer Aniston gives Kassie just enough snobbiness that she would reject Wally as a suitor, but enough openness to eventually see the flaws in her thinking.
Two other stellar, subdued performances make "The Switch" work, and they belong to Jeff Goldblum as Wally's best (and apparently only) pal Leonard, and young Thomas Robinson as the round-eyed, 6-year-old Sebastian.
We've all seen this last character a zillion times before: the precocious kid armed with a vocabulary and insights far beyond his years. Normally, this character appears in sitcoms as a strained and obnoxious know-it-all.
Robinson's Sebastian, under the guidance of co-directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck, is an emotional moppet sponge whose intelligence and persnickety nature barely mask his vulnerability.
Sebastian has a fascination for store-bought picture frames. (Believe it or not, this turns out to be an ingenious little story device.) He shares an instant, touching bond with Wally that almost goes unnoticed by Kassie.
Just when Wally thinks he might be more to Kassie than a friend, sperm donor Roland (Patrick Wilson) pops back into her life. Now divorced, the rugged Roland is exactly what Kassie has been looking for in a spouse.
She thinks.
"The Switch" isn't a Judd Apatow comedy with gross humor and easily accessible characters. It's barely a comedy at all.
There are no gags, no sitcom high jinks. Minimal clichés.
But it does feature an unexpectedly emotional performance by Bateman, whose ill-timed, overdue confession of love for Kassie is a little piece of romance magic.
<p class="factboxheadblack">"The Switch"</p>
<p class="News">★★★</p>
<p class="News"><b>Starring:</b> Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Juliette Lewis, Patrick Wilson</p>
<p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Josh Gordon and Will Speck</p>
<p class="News"><b>Other:</b> A Miramax Films release. Rated PG-13 for drug use, language, nudity, sexual situations. 101 minutes</p>
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