Susan Granger’s review of “The Switch” (Miramax Films)
Although Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly gave this artificial-insemination comedy controversial publicity, it’s nevertheless a formulaic and utterly predictable romance.
This story begins in New York City seven years ago as Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) realizes her biological clock is ticking. Determined to be a mother despite her lack of a husband, she tells her neurotic best friend Wally (Jason Bateman) that she’s searching for the perfect sperm donor. When she decides on a handsome-yet-married man, Roland (Patrick Wilson), she throws an ‘insemination party’ and, unbeknownst to her, inebriated Wally surreptitiously substitutes his sperm for Roland’s in the bathroom. Then Kassie becomes pregnant and moves home to be with her family in Minnesota.
Seven years later, single mother Kassie is back in Manhattan with her precocious son, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson), whose dour resemblance to Bateman is unmistakable. Meanwhile, Roland is now divorced and courting Kassie. But Kassie has no idea that Wally is really Sebastian’s biological father. And what will happen when she finds out?
Based on Jeffrey Eugenides’ New Yorker short story called “Baster,” the cliché-riddled yet underwritten script is by Allen Loeb and directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck (“Blades of Glory”), emerging as better than Jennifer Lopez’ “The Back-Up Plan,” yet paling beside the far funnier and more relevant “The Kids Are All Right” – all exploring somewhat the same concept. Credulity problem here is genetics. How could two blue-eyed, blond parents have a brown-eyed, dark-haired child?
While Jennifer Aniston displays her usual frantic perkiness, Jason Bateman specializes in melancholy prickliness, allowing moppet Thomas Robinson to steal every scene he’s in. Jeff Goldblum and Juliette Lewis are the main characters’ respective confidantes, and GMA’s Diane Sawyer makes a memorable cameo.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Switch” is a quirky, implausible 5. And since all of the genial, multimillionaire stars of TV’s ensemble “Friends” have attempted – and failed – at making a significant big screen impact, has anyone ever considered that, perhaps, they may, indeed, be smaller than life, rather than the opposite? Individually, they simply lack charisma.
