No surprises in the plot of 'The Switch'
By Joyce Glasser - 02/09/2010
The Switch, directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck (Blades of Glory, Caveman), could have been called ‘More than Friends’, but as it stars Jennifer Aniston, that wouldn’t do. Another apt title, About a Boy, would conjure up Hugh Grant at his peak, a comparison that for all his talent, Justin Bateman, The Switch’s co-star, might want to avoid.
The Switch is an underwhelming title, even for its surprising PG13 certificate, until you realise that it’s not about a light socket. Bateman plays Wally, jealously in love with his old friend Kassie (Aniston) who feels her biological clock ticking and wants a baby. Wally is unable to tell her he wants to be more than a friend let alone volunteer for the role of sperm donor. In an inebriated state, however, he communicates his desire by switching his sperm for Kassie’s chosen sperm donor’s. Sounds creepy? It is. Sounds funny? It isn’t.
The plot of The Switch is instantly familiar on three fronts. How many romcoms have you seen where the two lovers start off as friends who don’t realise their true feelings for each other? The artificial insemination strand instantly conjures up films like Baby Mama (in which Tina Fey took the Aniston role) and the Back-Up Plan, where Jennifer Lopez is the high powered executive who has put work before private life for too long. Now it’s Aniston’s turn, ho hum. The strand about the bachelor bonding with the single mum’s son is straight out of About a Boy.
We buy that Kassie and Wally are old friends, but it’s so obvious from the get-go that they are well matched and have stronger feelings for one another, that’s it’s just a matter of sitting it out until the inevitable happens. The Switch, written by Allan Loeb, is best when exploring the relationship between Wally and the neurotic six-year-old boy, one that develops naturally thanks to the writing of their characters and Bateman’s terrific performance
Where Bateman falls short, and this is more the fault of the script than the actor, is that Wally Mars fails to convince as a high-powered equity investor, and seems more like a mild-mannered, contemplative, tweed-jacketed academic. His rival, Roland (Patrick Wilson) the sperm donor Kassie pays and thinks is the father of her son, would be perfectly cast as a financial guru or jock, and miscast as an academic. Why didn’t Loeb or the producers simply reverse the rivals’ jobs? The fact that Roland is rich as well as macho, might have helped us swallow Kassie’s attraction to him, particularly as her son doesn’t like him and he’s a recent divorcee.
This isn’t by any means the worst romcom of the year, but then again, it’s only a comedy in that it has a happy ending. The Switch represents a new breed of film that follows the rules of the romcom but doesn’t aspire to entertaining us through the very difficult of task of comic writing. Indeed, Loeb, the script writer, is best known for the semi-autobiographical drama 21, the melodramatic Things We Lost in the Fire and the upcoming drama (or tragedy) Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.