Dir: Josh Gordon & Will Speck, 2010
Endearing and funny.
Wally (Jason Bateman) is neurotic, romantically stagnant and ensembly challenged. His best friend Kassie, is a fearless, liberated woman-of-a-certain-age who decides to procreate using the stuff of a donor she can screen in real life. Impervious to Wally's nay-saying, she throws a party during which she plans to inseminate herself (in her bathroom) with the "fresh" product of a studly feminist professor. But Wally gets a little drunk, accidentally spills the seed down the drain, decides to replace it with his own and forgets he's done it. Cut to seven years later, when Kassie returns to New York with her son Sebastian (Thomas Robinson), and Wally realizes the kid bears him an unsettling resemblance.
There are many things wrong and nonsensical in this movie, which work to undo your suspension of disbelief. Let's start with the fact that Kassie inseminates herself in her bathroom using a "medical device" we never see. This sounds about as plausible and safe as giving herself breast implants on the dining room table. Who does that? Eww.
That Kassie later doesn't connect the dots between Wally's idiosyncrasies and her own son's, especially since the kid has never met Wally, is another ridiculous thing for audiences to swallow. There's not even a light of recognition when she sees the two together. Really? She must be the world's least intuitive mother! I feel bad for Aniston, as it is not her fault her part is the weakest link in the whole movie. She works with what she has, and that is a character who seems like little more than a dim afterthought.
There, I've highlighted the worst of it. Now, let's move on to why I loved The Switch and why you should all go see it ASAP.
Wally. Yes, his neuroses and tics are hilarious. But, they are also isolating and sad. He doesn't have many friends, save his equally strange boss Leonard (played excellently by King of Quirk Jeff Goldblum) and the absent Kassie. He, like most neurotic people who aren't successful stand-up comedians or writers, doesn't profit from his weirdness. He suffers in life and relationships because of them. He isn't like everyone else and he's painfully aware of it. Too often, I think, movies portray social outcasts as misanthropes, self-exiles and people with superiority complexes. This movie seems to understand that low self-esteem, awkwardness and anxiety aren't choices.
Bateman plays Wally with honesty and humanity. He does an amazing job of conveying Wally's inner turmoil, even when he says nothing. He gets the nuances. I've long been a fan of his acting, but I think this is my favorite role of his. And, he accomplishes something very few actors can — a great voice-over that actually adds to the movie instead of being something you have to tolerate.
Sebastian. He is adorable, deadpan, tormented by diseases he doesn't have and by bullies who just don't get him. He, like Wally, has quirks that alienate him. He, like Wally, has it rough and seems resigned to the fact that sometimes it's just a mean ol' world. And Thomas Robinson is superb. His cuteness is neither exhausting nor nauseating. And he plays Sebastian as just the right amount of odd, dodging both creepiness and preciousness.
Wally + Sebastian. Their bond seems so effortless, so real, so immediate. It is easy to fall in love with their relationship and to get attached to them as a pair. This is the best father figure-young boy relationship I've seen since About a Boy.
See The Switch if you like comedies with heart and movies that treat out-of-the-ordinary characters with respect and depth. See it if you'd like a rom-com that offers a bit more than standard issue drivel. See it, because it's good and sweet and warm and it will make you smile.
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