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Wally (Jason Bateman) and Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) deal with an inconceivable conception problem in “The Switch.” |
“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. (Read more…)