Good to the last drop
Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman connect in ‘The Switch’
By Carl Kozlowski 08/19/2010
It’s always surprising when you go into a theater expecting one thing and wind up with a completely different kind of experience.
Usually that kind of switch is unpleasant, especially when a movie featuring a superstar turns out to be a dud, like 2003’s “Hollywood Homicide” with Harrison Ford, which was so bad that its writers and director never made another film.
Far rarer is the film that looks downright distasteful in its ad campaign and then turns out to be pretty good. That is the case with the new dramedy appropriately called “The Switch,” in which Jennifer Aniston plays Kassie, a woman facing 40 who opts for artificial insemination when she can’t find Mr. Right. Her best friend Wally (Jason Bateman) offers to be the sperm supplier, but she has him stuck in the “friend zone” and worries that he would pass on his neuroses to boot.
The TV commercials for “The Switch” cut to the chase with a stomach-churning scene in which Wally drunkenly sniffs, stares at, plays with and then spills the container of sperm Kassie plans to use for the procedure. Realizing that she has an apartment filled with people attending her “pregnancy party,” and that he can’t face up to admitting he’s ruined her big night, Wally unzips his pants and takes care of replenishing the supply himself.
So far, so icky. And yet, at that point a better movie begins lurking just over the top of the toilet bowl rim, with witty banter between two stars in top form throughout the film and a thoughtful opening narration over images of New Yorkers rushing right past each others’ lives. Clever writing is also a big plus, courtesy of Allan Loeb, who is widely considered the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood these days with a whopping 12 screenplays in production.
Halfway through, the movie pulls a switch of its own, taking a seven-year leap in time. Kassie decided to move back home to Minnesota while pregnant because she felt it would be too hard to raise a child in New York City. But now her son is 6, she’s gotten a great job offer back in the Big Apple, and she’s suddenly ready to re-enter Wally’s life.
Wally’s still single and a neurotic mess, but he sees that her son Sebastian (Thomas Robinson, a real find) looks and acts just like himself, as Kassie slips into oblivious denial. And as she relies on Wally to babysit for Sebastian while she delves into a new relationship with the guy she thought was the donor (Patrick Wilson), Wally comes to realize it’s time to grow up and fight for the important things in life.
“The Switch” is directed by the team of Josh Gordon and Will Speck, who previously did the Will Ferrell figure-skating farce “Blades of Glory.” They pull a 180 in this film once the slapstick first 20 minutes go by, turning out a film that knows when to be funny but, more importantly, when to be serious without turning sappy. It’s almost as good as the highly regarded 2002 film “About a Boy,” in which Hugh Grant played a middle-aged man-child forced to mature when a lonely teenage boy and his mother enter his life.
Gordon and Speck also make vibrant use of a sharp supporting cast that includes Jeff Goldblum and Juliette Lewis. The film’s many New York City locations fully ingrain the city into the film’s atmosphere without relying on overused tourist traps like the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. And the sharp score by Alex Wurman is complemented by an array of thoughtful indie-rock songs.
Put it all together and “The Switch” is the best kind of cinematic surprise: a film that is far better than expected and even better than it had to be.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT