Un pequeño cambio

"The Switch" is like a romantic comedy, except better because it gives you everything you want: romance and comedy with a story and characters. They buck the trend to make the romantic elements absurd and instead shower us with comedy and very little sap.

Jennifer Aniston is just a cute girl that the audience can accept as a character, but Jason Bateman is everything you want in a leading man. Very good looking but not in a typical way, plays up neurotic with aplomb, and is hilarious all the way through. We easily fall in love with him from beginning to end.

"The Switch" actually gives us a story, one where our hero has to evolve and mature as he realizes and understands the value that Aniston and her son bring to his life. Again, Jason Bateman is the kind of man that we have been waiting for in romantic comedies, because he actually has the talent to portray all of that, and do it with comedy. A romantic comedy that is cute, funny, romantic, mature and where you actually welcome the story line - what more could you ask for?

What a strong cast for such an average film. Having the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, and Jeff Goldblum is a headstart on almost any romcom, but I felt that none of them were the right casting choice for their respective role. Aniston was the only one who felt like she belonged, but like any romcom, a love interest is required and Bateman fell flat. Both Aniston and Bateman performed great, but the lack of chemistry was palpable. The funniest thing about this film was how poorly Goldblum fit into his role. He essentially plays the low-screen time advice friend to consult Bateman's character, yet he maintains Goldblum's "larger than life" persona. I am not typically crazy about romcoms and this one lands right at the median for them in my opinion.

This film is about a woman who gets pregnant by artificial insemination with seeds from a donor. An unexpected switch causes an avalanche of events that changes her life.

The first ten minutes appear to be a bombardment of words, with constant conversation at full speed. Then the story moves slowly, and the first sign of any romance happens well after 70 minutes into the film. There is little portrayal of Kassie's dilemma between two guys and her entangled emotions, which makes the film a lot less engaging. Even though the film follows the typical romantic comedy formula, the formula is so rushed that everything occurs in the last 20 minutes of the film.

The script does not work at all. It is poorly paced, unfunny and just drags on. It creates nothing to make the viewers look forward to. It does not instill any loving feelings into the atmosphere. It does not even feel sweet or romantic. There is no comedy at all, it does not make me even smile once. I normally enjoy romantic comedies, but I find "The Switch" unbelievably boring.

The Switch (2010)

Okay, it would be easy to dis this movie as a canned, obvious, emotionally thin contrivance. It's a vehicle for two popular stars playing characters in their 30s who are, despite good looks and basic social skills, single and childless. They have to fall in love but life gets in the way in kind of stupid ways. You can't take it seriously, and you can't even quite care enough to hope for the best, whatever that is.

But it's also easy to like this movie despite its obviousness. Jason Bateman is a joy to watch. Maybe his performance is like the movie--glib and facile. But like the movie he is endlessly watchable, and his character is the one with the most depth. His interactions with the boy of six or so are terrific. The boy, too, is adorable and helps the movie get some feeling.

Jennifer Aniston plays the woman who wants a child but has no one willing to be the dad, more or less (though the viewer knows better). And she's a terrific actress, actually, even if her role here (and elsewhere) is often not as demanding as it could be. I suppose Meg Ryan has some kind of edge on her for this kind of stereotype--the lovable lonely urban girl who just can't get love right despite the obvious--but Aniston is an update on that type.

But it is Aniston and Bateman together that really make the movie glide along and make you smile. They have great rapport and good timing, comedic and serious both. I wouldn't say they have chemistry (I guess that's the problem their characters have, so maybe it's great acting) but they make their scenes pop in a way the rest of the movie trundles.

The story writer, Jeffrey Eugenides, is better known for sprawling novels and lots of interrelated characters, but even there there are little hooks that come off a hair obvious. That's the problem here, in the end. There's a big trick, a wonderful and funny hook of an idea, and that almost alone has to handle all the consequences. Some better character development would have been a joy.

Oh, and it's been a long time since a movie with two directors has been able to pull off consistency. I don't know the logistics behind it, but maybe one of the hesitations all along is a lack of singular conviction. Or not. Maybe this is such a formula product any number of directors could have chipped in.

Watch it for the two leads together. And for some fun, warm laughs, if that's your thing. I enjoyed it.

If the Hollywood studios still made the type of urban comedies they made back in the early 1970's starring George Segal (usually) as a neurotic nebbish, then Jason Bateman's big-screen career would certainly be secure. As he displayed consistently on "Arrested Development", the actor's dry delivery and slyly observant manner are a perfect match for Wally Mars, the comically cynical equities analyst he plays in this sadly overlooked 2010 romantic comedy co-directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon (who much to my surprise, helmed the Will Ferrell figure-skating comedy, "Blades of Glory"). Although he is the true protagonist of the story, the movie was marketed as a Jennifer Aniston vehicle. She plays rising TV producer Kassie Larson, his long-ago girlfriend who has relegated him to the "friend zone" even though he obviously hasn't gotten over her.

Written with verve by Allen Loeb (who also co-wrote Aniston's recent 2011 movie, the Adam Sandler starrer, "Just Go With It"), the story revolves around Kassie's ticking biological clock. In a seven-years-back flashback, she is seen deliberately bypassing Wally as a possible sperm donor in favor of a more predictable candidate, Roland, a struggling associate professor at Columbia, who happens to be married and drop-dead handsome. At an "insemination" party, Wally gets wasted and drops the carelessly placed vial of Roland's semen down the bathroom sink. This leaves Wally no choice but to replace the sample himself. Kassie eventually becomes pregnant and moves back home to Minnesota. Flash forward to the present, and Kassie returns to Manhattan with her six-year-old son Sebastian in tow. The fact that Sebastian acts like a miniature version of Wally gets completely past Kassie but not Wally who slowly realizes that out of his stupor years ago, his son was conceived.

Although this indiscretion would seem like the perfect excuse for Wally to reveal his true feelings for Kassie, complications ensue when she starts a relationship with Roland, now desperately on the rebound from a bitter divorce. At the same time, Wally forms a close bond with Sebastian who naturally gravitates toward him because of their mutual idiosyncrasies. Bateman handles Wally's evolution from self-absorbed fatalist to paternal protector with aplomb and surprising depth. Aniston is better served here than in most of her standard-issue romantic comedies, and the sharp interplay between these two actors, especially in the beginning scenes, is refreshingly rapid-fire like a modern-day "His Girl Friday". With his constantly forlorn expression interrupted by moments of genuine happiness, Thomas Robinson is terrifically understated as Sebastian, and his unforced scenes with Bateman represent the true high points of the film.

A crack supporting cast has been assembled. As Wally's best friend and manager, the sarcastic ladies' man Leonard, Jeff Goldblum takes a predictable role and gives it his special, off-kilter twist. The result is his funniest turn in years, for example, his use of the term "ill-advised" during the moment of revelation is hilariously unexpected. The same can also be said for Juliette Lewis, who plays Kassie's constantly inappropriate best friend Debbie with her spacey delivery intact as she slings clever putdowns at Wally. Even Patrick Wilson, saddled with the no-win role of the golden boy Roland, who has no capacity for honest introspection, is funny in a role that gets diabolically transparent as the proceedings get complicated. The 2011 DVD/Blu-Ray offers a standard set of extras - a fifteen-minute making-of featurette ("The Switch Conceived"); about ten deleted and alternate scenes running for nearly half an hour in total, one a more purposeful variation on the central scene; and a brief blooper reel. Give it a try.