The Semen, err, we mean The Switch

A movie review by Gregg Beever

The Switch tells a story each of us, I think, can relate to. We’ve all been there, accidentally spilling a hopeful single mom’s donor semen and replacing it with our own so no one is the wiser. If I had a quarter for every replacement-semen-baby I’ve got, let me tell you, that’s a lot of quarters.

Supplying the semen for this film is Jason Bateman as Wally Mars, the quick-witted, awkward best friend of Kassie Larson (Jennifer Aniston). No longer willing to wait through the standards steps of baby-making, Kassie jumps all those pesky relationship hurdles, opting for artificial insemination.

When a drunk Wally exchanges Kassie’s bottled baby-gravy for a load of his own, the premise is on. Seven years later, his best friend moves back to New York, and Wally begins to realizes he hijacked Kassie’s pregnancy and little Sebastian is his son.

Both Bateman and Aniston are excellent comedic actors with expert timing. I’ve liked Jennifer Aniston since the days of the Rachel Cut, and her banter with Bateman is hilarious and fun to watch. More importantly, the dialogue felt genuine, allowing the audience to buy into the friendship and history the two characters have.

The strongest relationship in the film, however, belongs to Wally and his son Sebastian. Thomas Robinson is not the most talented child actor – he’s certainly no Haley Joel Osment, the young DUI king – but he supplies right amount of innocence to the roll of a smart, odd kid.

Wally talks to Sebastian as if he were an adult, which I really enjoyed. Their conversations about hypochondria and missing father figures are cute, touching and add an element of friendship to the fatherly roll Wally later takes on.

For all its strengths, however, this movie could not escape the typical romantic comedy pitfalls. There seems to be a notion among screen writers that the audience will care if two people end up together simply because they are the principal characters. While Bateman and Aniston do have chemistry on the big screen, it isn’t romantic chemistry.

At no point in this film does Aniston’s Kassie see something in Wally she hadn’t before. Despite multiple scenes where Kassie is watching Wally interact and bond with her son, the script gives us no indication she is interested.

Okay, yes, there is a scene where Kassie tells Wally there’s some new “energy” between them. But really, if the script must resort to telling me there is “energy” rather than showing me, the screen writers aren’t doing their job.

There are other problems, such as Jeff Goldblum’s over-the-top performance as Wally’s confidant. Also, does Juliette Lewis ever not look completely wrecked on screen? Every movie she’s in I assume she’s playing a crack addict.

While there are some minor issues, The Switch is worth a trip to the theater if you have some time to kill, and definitely worth a rent when it hits DVD and Blu-ray. The film is quite funny, has a few very sweet moments and teaches us something about life. For example, I learned if you accidentally spill your best friend’s donor semen, make sure to replace it with your own semen, because eventually that semen will be your swapped-semen love-child that gets you the girl…

…semen.

Gregg Beever writes about movies for us. He also just set a new record for use of the term “semen” in a 600 word review.