Directed by: Will Speck & Josh Gordon
Written by: Allan Loeb
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Juliette Lewis
Rating: [2/5]
The insemination process to get pregnant requires various steps, hurdles, and safeguards to ensure everything goes to plan. Something evidently that can be completely squandered during one drunken stupor putting everything in jeopardy. The Switch posits what occurs when something as safely guarded as a semen sample for a procedure just sits out in the open with the potential for tampering making quite the absurd story.
Reaching her 30s with no hope for love, Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) has decided to use a sperm donor for intrauterine insemination. This perturbs her best friend, Wally (Jason Bateman) as she rejects using his sperm. During the insemination party to celebrate the future procedure, Wally sees the sperm sample and mistakenly spills it thus replacing it with his own in a panic. Now years later, Wally begins to suspect the child Kassie has is biologically his.
Centering a comedy on medical rape should raise eyebrows at the idea of this feature having quirkiness to it. The titular act where Wally spills the sperm and then provides a sample Kassie then uses without her knowledge reaches a level of violation this feature only truly looks through the guy’s perspective. The view of him feeling bad when he begins to notice the child has the same demeanor and fears as him indicating his sample successfully worked without Kassie knowing or consenting to use. Quite the messy story idea but the worst of it comes from this feature asking to side with Wally throughout this narrative.
Portraying the guy who’s truly meant for her and who has friend-zoned earlier really gives this feature an extra creepy vibe to it. Prior to the insemination, Wally meets the donor who Kassie specifically picked out in Roland (Patrick Wilson). Something she did with intentionality and because he did not like the guy, he messes up the entire process while drunk, as if that excuses everything. Therefore, years later when it becomes clear to Wally the kid shares his DNA, it becomes a struggle for him to share what he did with Kassie only making it difficult when she begins a relationship with Roland to perhaps make one big happy family. By all means, Wally’s a selfish and terrible person and it’s quite ridiculous this feature presents him as the good guy. The protagonist does not always have to be an upstanding citizen, but the way the narrative continually creates this framework around him as being the nice guy to root for like the structure of many romantic comedies of this ilk, proves quite ill-conceived.
Where the feature tries its best to win us back through Wally are his interactions with the kid, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson). Quite the cute kid and the scenes he shares with Wally demonstrate the similarities they bear making it quite clear they share the same DNA. These moments certainly display Wally at his best as he serves as a fun uncle in these interactions with him. It presents the idea of how he would fare as a father to this child, while already having the title biologically, but now on a familial level. These make for the best moments within the film, but then the feature cannot escape the messiness of Kassie’s relationship with Roland and how Wally wants to sabotage that as well. As cute as these moments are, they cannot fully distract from the reality of this horrible character at the center.
Leading the line for this feature we have Jason Batement who tries his best with this despicable character along with Jennifer Aniston bringing the energy she always does in these romantic comedies. Aniston does some wonders here in her portrayal of Kassie in helping craft a wholly sympathetic character and one conflicted with what she experiences throughout the entirety of this feature. Someone who just wanted a baby and now finds herself in this forced love triangle because of the selfish actions of one man. She remains the rock of the feature along with Thomas Robinson as Sebastian showing they deserve much more.
Instead of taking the secret of what he did to the grave, The Switch pulls into a desperate attempt to convince us to root for a terrible human being. It certainly appeals to the audience by displaying he’s a good guy to Sebastian but none of it comes close to redeeming this guy. Writer Allan Loeb pieces together something highly questionable and not that comedic of a premise, especially when looking at it through the perspective of Kassie and what occurs to her. Shifting it to a romantic comedy feels ill-conceived and horrid in reality.
Films with Josh 
