Review: 'The Switch' spins a touching father-son story

Don’t be fooled by misleading advertising or even your own preconceptions. It turns out “The Switch” is a heck of a wonderful film.

Wally (Jason Bateman), a neurotic and insecure Wall Street type, has been in love with Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) for years, though she regards him as only a friend. Hearing the thundering of her biological clock, the single and nearly 40-year-old Kassie decides to take drastic action and get artificially inseminated.

Though Wally is willing, Kassie sets her sights on Roland (Patrick Wilson), her perfect sperm doner. At a party celebrating her decision, a heartbroken and exceptionally drunk Wally surreptitiously substitutes his own semen for Roland’s. Seven years later, Kassie, who left New York to raise her child closer to family in Minnesota, returns to Manhattan with 6-year-old Sebastian (Thomas Robinson), who is every bit as neurotic and phobic as his father. Too bad Wally can’t remember a thing.

We’re asked to take some mighty big leaps of faith here — leaps without which the film would not work — namely Wally’s binge-induced amnesia. But this is a comedy and stretching credulity is allowed, so long as it doesn’t snap.

Had the film remained in the same gear as the first act — sperm jokes and double entendres — this would have been a very different review. But once “The Switch” gets beyond its ridiculous setup (and some unnecessary and staid narration) and we leap forward in time, the film hits a poignant stride few will see coming.

“The Switch” is a classic case of marketers not trusting the quality of their own product. Though “The Switch” is being hyped as a romcom, it’s not. Not technically anyway. This is not a story about a boy and a girl. This is a father-and-son story, far more in the rich vein of “About a Boy” than, say, the other artificial insemination comedy of the year, the gag-inducing “The Backup Plan.”

Directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck have adapted “Virgin Suicides” writer Jeffrey Eugenides’ New Yorker short story “Baster” with wit and wisdom, striking the perfect balance between comedy and seriousness, and nailing the high notes exactly when the film most needs to.

Though she is given top billing, Aniston is nearly irrelevant to the story (other than the fact that somebody had to be Sebastian’s mom). This is not intended as an insult, but rather an acknowledgment that she is simply not as critical to the story as one might expect.

In fact, she doesn’t share much more screen time than the wonderful, eccentric Jeff Goldblum as Bateman’s best friend and boss.

If the film falters, it’s because we never truly buy Aniston and Bateman together — their story needs more spit and polish.

That said, Bateman is at his best here, both comedically and dramatically. And Thomas Robinson, as a mini-Bateman with such aching family issues that he collects picture frames and pretends the advertisements in them are his relatives, does such a phenomenal job that you will spend one half of the film laughing out loud and the other half uttering, “Awwwwwwwww.”

“THE SWITCH”

Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Juliette Lewis, Thomas Robinson

Directors: Josh Gordon, Will Speck

Theaters: Chapel Hills, Cinemark, Hollywood, Tinseltown

Rated: PG-13, for mature thematic content, sexual material including dialogue, some nudity, drug use and language

Running Time: 1 hour, 41 minutes

Grade: B+