The Switch

Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck

(PG-13)

***

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The Switch “turns out to be a nice switch indeed,” said Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. Josh Gordon and Will Speck’s film, loosely based on a short story by Jeffrey Eugenides, is a “rare example” of a romantic comedy that focuses on the man’s experience. Jennifer Aniston gets top billing as Kassie, a TV exec tired of waiting around for the right man with whom to have a child. But the film’s real focus is Kassie’s best friend, Wally (Jason Bateman). Feeling jilted when he doesn’t make Kassie’s shortlist of potential sperm donors, Wally secretly switches her selected donor’s baby-making ingredients with his own batch. Lending Wally a dark edge, Bateman “saves the film from getting too cozy,” said Rafer Guzman in Newsday. In fact, it takes Wally years to reveal his deception. By then, Kassie’s gone from go-getter to single parent, said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. Watching Aniston’s graceful, low-key scenes with Bateman, you can briefly forget you’re watching yet another comedy about “baby-crazed women and their biological clocks.”