This movie is a sweet romantic comedy, but it's not about the romantic love between a man and a woman. It's about the paternal love of a father for his son and when it focuses on that, it's rather pleasant and fairly funny. When it weakly tries to drag itself through standard rom-com clichés, it's an indifferent and uninspired effort.
Wally Mars (Jason Bateman) is one of those dark but funny New York neurotics with all the social graces of a hedgehog. His longtime friend Kassie Larson (Jennifer Aniston) announces at lunch one day that she wants to have a baby and is sick and tired of waiting for find the right guy, so she's going to use artificial insemination. Wally thinks it's a bad idea, largely because he's still harboring faint hopes of he and Kassie eventually ending up together, but she won't be dissuaded. She finds a willing sperm donor (Patrick Wilson) and even throws a party on the night she's to be knocked up. Wally shows up at the party, gets drunk off his ass, accidentally destroys the donated sperm and substitutes his own seed.
Wally, however, was too drunk to remember what he did and Kassie moves back home to Minnesota to raise her son, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson). 7 years later, Kassie and Sebastian move back to New York and back into Wally's life. Sebastian is like a tiny and even more intense version of Wally and the unknowing father and son develop an instant affinity for each other. Kassie also starts to reconsider keeping Wally in the "friend zone", but she also reconnects with the intended sperm donor and starts dating him.
You won't be surprised that the donor is the polar opposite of Wally or that Wally eventually remembers what he did but never finds the right time to tell Kassie until it's the worst possible moment or well, you won't be surprised by anything in The Switch.
When this film is about the relationship between Wally and Sebastian and, to lesser extents, the relationships between Wally and Kassie and Wally and his boss (Jeff Goldblum), it's quite charming and amusing. There aren't a lot of great jokes but the interactions of the characters are wonderfully awkward and human. Unfortunately, the story these characters are in is kind of pathetic. It never makes any sense why Kassie and Wally aren't together in the first place, it doesn't make any sense why they don't get together as the story goes along and then when they finally do get together, that doesn't make any sense either. The hurried ending to The Switch is essentially Kassie saying "I'm so mad at you, Wally! Oh, wait. I'm not."
What saves the Switch is that these filmmakers seem to understand and accept how lame their plot is and spend surprisingly little effort at disguising it. Or maybe they were oblivious to how nonsensical much of it is. Whatever the reason, they just breeze right through every scene where the characters behave like idiots, saying and doing things normal people would never say or do, and jump right over any gaps in logic or plausibility. And because they don't labor on such things, the viewer doesn't have to pay them much heed either.
For example, the movie never really gives much justification to Kassie and Wally being "just friends" even though they clearly share a connection. But that actually works because making more of an effort would have only emphasized how contrived and artificial their platonic status is. And at every other rom-com cliché that makes you roll your eyes, this movie takes it all as given and moves on, sparing the indulgent viewer a lot of aggravation.
Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston and Thomas Robinson all do very good jobs. They create people you enjoy spending time watching. It would have been nice to watch them doing more intelligent things, but you can't have everything in life. The Switch is better than average fare for rom-com fans, but it's nothing anyone needs to rush out and see.
Wally Mars (Jason Bateman) is one of those dark but funny New York neurotics with all the social graces of a hedgehog. His longtime friend Kassie Larson (Jennifer Aniston) announces at lunch one day that she wants to have a baby and is sick and tired of waiting for find the right guy, so she's going to use artificial insemination. Wally thinks it's a bad idea, largely because he's still harboring faint hopes of he and Kassie eventually ending up together, but she won't be dissuaded. She finds a willing sperm donor (Patrick Wilson) and even throws a party on the night she's to be knocked up. Wally shows up at the party, gets drunk off his ass, accidentally destroys the donated sperm and substitutes his own seed.
Wally, however, was too drunk to remember what he did and Kassie moves back home to Minnesota to raise her son, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson). 7 years later, Kassie and Sebastian move back to New York and back into Wally's life. Sebastian is like a tiny and even more intense version of Wally and the unknowing father and son develop an instant affinity for each other. Kassie also starts to reconsider keeping Wally in the "friend zone", but she also reconnects with the intended sperm donor and starts dating him.
You won't be surprised that the donor is the polar opposite of Wally or that Wally eventually remembers what he did but never finds the right time to tell Kassie until it's the worst possible moment or well, you won't be surprised by anything in The Switch.
When this film is about the relationship between Wally and Sebastian and, to lesser extents, the relationships between Wally and Kassie and Wally and his boss (Jeff Goldblum), it's quite charming and amusing. There aren't a lot of great jokes but the interactions of the characters are wonderfully awkward and human. Unfortunately, the story these characters are in is kind of pathetic. It never makes any sense why Kassie and Wally aren't together in the first place, it doesn't make any sense why they don't get together as the story goes along and then when they finally do get together, that doesn't make any sense either. The hurried ending to The Switch is essentially Kassie saying "I'm so mad at you, Wally! Oh, wait. I'm not."
What saves the Switch is that these filmmakers seem to understand and accept how lame their plot is and spend surprisingly little effort at disguising it. Or maybe they were oblivious to how nonsensical much of it is. Whatever the reason, they just breeze right through every scene where the characters behave like idiots, saying and doing things normal people would never say or do, and jump right over any gaps in logic or plausibility. And because they don't labor on such things, the viewer doesn't have to pay them much heed either.
For example, the movie never really gives much justification to Kassie and Wally being "just friends" even though they clearly share a connection. But that actually works because making more of an effort would have only emphasized how contrived and artificial their platonic status is. And at every other rom-com cliché that makes you roll your eyes, this movie takes it all as given and moves on, sparing the indulgent viewer a lot of aggravation.
Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston and Thomas Robinson all do very good jobs. They create people you enjoy spending time watching. It would have been nice to watch them doing more intelligent things, but you can't have everything in life. The Switch is better than average fare for rom-com fans, but it's nothing anyone needs to rush out and see.