Time: 2:29

Opening this weekend in the U.S.: THE SWITCH.

Jennifer Aniston stars alongside Jason Bateman in this offbeat comedy as Kassie, a smart, fun-loving single woman who, despite her neurotic best friend Wally’s (Bateman) objections, decides it’s time to have a baby, even if it means doing it by herself… with a little help from a charming sperm donor (Patrick Wilson). But, unbeknownst to her, Kassie’s plans go awry because of a last-minute switch that isn’t discovered until seven years later when Wally finally gets acquainted with Kassie’s cute–though slightly neurotic–son.

Read my review of THE SWITCH for Jacksonville.com’s Cinemania:

THE SWITCH REVIEW
*Warning: This review contains plot spoilers.

Man gets son. Man loses son. Man gets son.

The Switch is not your typical romantic comedy. Wally (Jason Bateman) has been in love with Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) for years. But it’s not until she reappears in his life as a single mom with a 6-year-old, intelligent, neurotic son who looks just like him, that he really connects with another member of the human race: the boy.

Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) not only looks like Wally, he has many of Wally’s peculiarities, like moaning when eating his favorite foods. He’s a hypochondriac like Wally. Like Wally, Sebastian doesn’t know his father. So many coincidences, or are they?

The night Sebastian was conceived, Wally got hammered at Kassie’s “Let’s Get Pregnant Party.” Deciding to have a baby through artificial insemination, Kassie chooses the perfect, gorgeous sperm donor for hire, Roland (Patrick Wilson). When Wally stumbles into the bathroom where the donor just left his contribution to Kassie’s pregnancy in a lab container, Wally accidentally dumps the important ingredient down the sink drain. Wally does what any man boy would do who secretly breaks something, he fixes it. He puts his own ingredients in the container and the switch is on. In his drunken stupor, Wally confesses his deed, not to Kassie, but to his best friend and co-worker, Leonard (Jeff Goldblum).

The next day Wally remembers little about the night before; not his 4 a.m. visit to Leonard’s and especially not switching the sperm. After Kassie gets pregnant, she moves away and returns 7 years later with Sebastian. She wants him to meet and get to know his biological father who she believes is Roland.

Wally takes a liking to Sebastian right away, but the boy requires a little time to warm up. When Wally gives the boy advice about dealing with a bully at school, it’s Wally who Sebastian goes to when the plan of “acting crazy” doesn’t work. Cut and bruised, instead of going home to his mama, Sebastian walks 22 blocks to show Wally he took his advice, hoping he’d be proud of him.

When “Seed Man,” as Sebastian knows him as, and Kassie begin dating, Sebastian makes sure Roland knows he hates him. Wally sees more and more of himself in Sebastian and talks with Leonard about it. That’s when Leonard tells him about the sperm switch and Wally learns he is the boy’s biological father, not Roland.

During a trip to Roland’s cabin in Michigan, Kassie calls Wally to rescue Sebastian, who’d been staying with a friend, from head lice. During the whole tedious process of delousing, Wally and Sebastian bond like father and son. When Kassie returns Wally tries to tell her the truth about the sperm switch, but before he can, Kassie lets him know she and Roland are moving in together.

Roland hosts a party and invites Wally. Kassie and her friends are there. Roland’s whole family is there. Roland shows an engagement ring to Wally and he knows he must tell Kassie the truth before it’s too late. But Roland breaks up the confession session before the revelation. Just as Roland begins to propose to Kassie in front of an audience of family and friends, Wally stuns everyone by telling Kassie he high jacked her pregnancy and confesses he’s the “Seed Guy.” He’s Sebastian’s father, not Roland.

Kassie cuts off all ties with Wally, forbidding him to see Sebastian or her. Wally is forlorn. Sebastian is forlorn. Kassie is confused, but finally comes around to the reality of her true feelings for Wally. She waits for him outside his work and tells him she broke up with Roland and wants Wally to be part of Sebastian’s life. Wasting no time, Wally instantly asks her, “Will you marry me?” Her nonchalant answer is: “Probably.”

This story is as much a love story between father and son as it is between Wally and Kassie. As easy as it is to fall off the cliff of melodrama, The Switch does not do that. Without manipulating the audience, The Switch manages to create an emotional bond between the audience and father and son.

Yes, the film follows romantic comedy structure: but the “cute meet” is between Wally and Sebastian in a restaurant when Kassie points to a boy watching fish in an aquarium who looks a bit like Roland. But when that boy moves aside and Wally sees Sebastian, his spitting image, it’s love at first site. And the end of act two, when typically boy loses girl, Wally loses Sebastian and his mother. And as any self-respecting romantic comedy should end, Wally, Kassie and Sebastian are together before credits role.

Sharon Y. Cobb
Jacksonville.com’s Cinemania