THE SWITCH

title: THE SWITCH
year: 2010
cast: Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston
rating: **

For a Romantic Comedy, THE SWITCH lacks humor and is about as romantic as sleet on a windshield. Jason Bateman is a nice guy in love with Jennifer Aniston, his best friend who really wants a baby. She winds up finding Mr. Right, a married doctor with blue eyes and a great future, who donates sperm – and she throws a party for the occasion! This makes Bateman really sad and what’s a heartbroken guy to do but get drunk. He winds up in her bathroom where the doctor’s “loaded cup” rests on the sink. He causes it to spill and... being flustered and intoxicated… replaces the contents with his own. Skip a few years later: Aniston has a brooding son who takes life way too seriously. with more hang-ups than even the most neurotic adults. Most of the film has Bateman hanging out with the kid and slowly realizing it might be his own – a double insult since both characters aren't very likable. Meanwhile Aniston, taking a back seat throughout, has decided to marry the donor doc, now divorced and ready to raise his son to be an athletic optimist like himself. There’s decent chemistry between Bateman and Aniston as friends in a dilemma (even though she doesn’t realize it yet), but when the kid enters the picture, everything goes to pot.  He’s just too annoying to care about. And the predictable resolution is not only a much too easy out for Bateman’s original deception, but makes Aniston’s character look vapid and weak.