It’s your typical story. Boy meets girl, boy doesn’t make a move on girl, boy hijacks girls pregnancy…

Wally (Jason Bateman) and Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) are best friends. It’s clear that Wally has feelings for Kassie, but he keeps it quiet for fear of losing her. He even keeps quiet when she decides to have a baby using a sperm donor and then moves out of his life. But not before messing with her pregnancy. See, alcohol + suppressed feelings = Wally switching Kassie’s donor sperm with his at the “baby making” party. (Please tell me there are not REALLY parties for artificial insemination!)

Seven years after becoming pregnant  Kassie and her son Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) move back to New York, and back into the lives of Wally. Despite the obvious similarities between Wally and Sebastian, Kassie has never questioned the paternity of Sebastian. Did I mention that Sebastian is a hypochondriac who loves WebMD, shelter animals, and collecting picture frames? It gets really messy when Kassie meets up with who she thinks is the donor, Roland (Patrick Wilson), and they form a relationship. Now, Wally must chose between staying quiet or confessing everything to Kassie and Sebastian.

The story itself in THE SWITCH is relatively original. I kind of got the impression that it is an adults version of JUNO. It’s not very probable for these circumstances to happen, unless you have a fertility/baby making party where you are going to be inseminated with fresh “seed”. That is one of the weirdest parties that I have ever seen. The thing that makes the most sense about the party is that Juliette Lewis’s character Debbie hosts it. The film was very funny, but was weighed down occasionally by unnecessary parts that seemed to drag on. There were a couple of times that I got bored. Still, the funny parts balanced it out a bit.

Jason Bateman was superb as Wally. His sense of humor and delivery fell right in line with his character. He did a great job of portraying his character as likeable, rather than creepy. I mean, he switched sperm… that is pretty darn creepy. Still, the best part of the film for me was Thomas Robinson. He was so adorable and funny! I love weird, smart little kids. They are way more interesting to watch in movies than the pretty, popular little girl that wants to be a cheerleader. Heck, even in real life I encourage children to be smart and strange! Go nuts kids!

Jennifer Aniston was ok as Kassie. I like her as an actor, but I just see her playing “Rachel” in every role. It’s not that I can’t get over her FRIENDS role, I just wish she would show us a different character every now and again.

This movie is funny and smart… but I think they could have picked up the pace in parts.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars