Film Reviews

The Switch

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Jason Bateman
• Details: US/101mins 15A

A sweet, inoffensive romantic comedy that once again showcases the infectious amiability of Jason Bateman, this may have failed at the American box-office, but its an easy going and enjoyable watch for the most part. While Jennifer Aniston may be primarily seen nowadays as fodder for gossip mags, it's easy to forget that the actress has strong comic timing. She takes (a deserved) backseat to Bateman's neurotic New Yorker here, but she's funny and charming enough to offer a reminder of how she got where she is in the first place.
Aniston is a successful, driven woman approaching her 40s, who decides that she doesn't want to wait for Mr. Right to have a baby, so enlists the help of spunky sperm donor, Patrick Wilson. But her BFF, Wally, played by Bateman, thinks this is a bad idea, and continually attempts to talk her out of it. Alas, ahead with it she goes, and on the night of the insemination, Wally manages to drunkenly dispose of the sperm, replacing it with his own in a panic. So pissed he can't remember any of it, when Aniston announces she's pregnant and moving away, he doesn't give the evening a second thought until she turns up with her son a few years later - who is a ringer for Wally and shares many of his neurosis'.
Coming from the co-directors of the far more comedically ostentatious Blades of Glory, you'd be forgiven for expecting gross-out gags galore here. But instead the concentration is on relationships, and Wally's inability to function in romantic one. It's not until a touching scene later in the movie, between him and what may be the fruit of his loins, do we really find out why. Structurally there are definite problems, and the film all too often moves to a lazy narration to fill in the gaps. It jumps forward six years or so, and comes back a different feeling flick - but a better one.
A huge part of the reason of why it does work is Bateman. He's portraying someone here who should be extremely annoying, and played by most other actors he would be. Somehow he's emotionally engaging, and you feel him growing throughout the course of the film. You really get why Aniston would go out with him in the first place and become his best bud. The Arrested Development star never once oversells it, always offering subtle hints to a deeper Wally.
It can fall back into the realms of 'cliché' at points (best mate with pearls of wisdom etc), but The Switch is still a sweet, if slight flick that is worth a watch for Bateman alone.

Review by Mike Sheridan