Movie Review: The Switch

PORTSMOUTH, Va. - By FOX43tv.com's Film Reviewer, Stephanie Cooke

Watch the trailer!

Ridiculous premise alert!! Take a 40-year-old television producer who has no potential mate in her life, but is determined to have a baby, throw in former potential mate-turned-best-friend, add a sperm donor and a wacky best friend who likes to throw parties and you have the basic plot set up for The Switch.

Jennifer Aniston is the lackluster Kassie and Jason Bateman is the neurotic Wally -- they are the best freinds. She decides she is going to find a donor to help her get pregnant. Her friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis) throws her an insemination party, where Wally -- who still has feelings for Kassie but no guts to tell her -- accidentally spills "the ingredients" and has no choice in his drunken stupor, but to replace it with his own specimen. Oh and by the way, he remembers none of this!

Kassie gets pregnant and moves from New York City back home to Minnesota to raise baby Sebastian. Fast forward seven years, and she returns with the kid to NYC for a job. Wally is thrilled, until he starts hanging around Sebastian and begins noticing how very much like himself he is.

He confides in his friend and co-worker played by Jeff Goldblum who tells him all kinds of information about the night of the insemination party. Now Wally knows Sebastian is his and has to grow a back bone. Cue the last half of the movie.

The Switch has some real slow moments but is mostly well-written with great dialogue. If you can get past the premise, the characters (save Anniston's) are pretty interesting and witty. Kassie could have been better developed, but not with Jennifer Aniston in charge of the character. And after seeing him in this movie, I think Jason Bateman deserves some more shots at leading roles.

However! When Jeff Goldblum is in a scene, he steals it. When Thomas Henderson (seven-year-old Sebastian) is in a scene, he steals it. Thankfully the two share few scenes -- or it could have been a battle royale. Henderson turns the best child actor performance I can recall in recent years. You really feel his neurotic and hypochondriac performance and want to jump into the movie and make everything better for him.

In retrospect, I wonder if The Switch wouldn't have been a better Indie movie. It almost feels like it could have been good in that incarnation, but some Hollywood studio types felt like putting Aniston in could make it box office viable and then that meant changing a few things. But, I digress.

Overall The Switch is surprisingly enjoyable. It manages to hold your attention even when you know exactly where its going. Don't get me wrong: it's nothing to write home to Oscar about, but I can see getting drawn into it on a rainy day flipping TV channels 6 months down the road.

Two out of four COOKE-ies!