REVIEW: Jason Bateman Comes Into His Own in The Switch

The movie isn't about alternative families per se, although it does come off, for the most part, as affably open-minded. It doesn't make a big deal out of Kassie's decision to have a baby without a partner -- Bill O'Reilly, with his recent comments about how the movie's ideas are "destructive to our society," has done more to draw attention to that angle than anything that actually appears in the movie.

For a mainstream picture, The Switch at least makes an attempt to recognize the often-messy reality of people's lives. Aniston, the single mom, suffers the least of any character in the movie: Capable and efficient, she's perfectly equipped to handle any challenge her oddball son dishes out, including his worries about having numerous unlikely ailments, such as Parkinson's. (The kid, Sebastian, is played by Thomas Robinson, who never steps over the line into horrid cuteness.) Aniston has always struck me as a blandly appealing performer: I can never bring myself to strongly like or dislike her, though I have found myself admiring her willingness to vest her characters with a slight shrewishness -- as cute as she is, she never settles for being just plain adorable.

But Aniston's performance in The Switch suggests something else about her: She has less screen time than Bateman does, and she doesn't hog what she's got -- she leaves lots of breathing space for her co-star, as if she realizes, subconsciously or otherwise, that this really is his time to shine. Bateman is terrific even in the movie's most throwaway moments. All of his scenes with his boss, played by a marvelously zonked-out Jeff Goldblum, are great fun to watch. Their rhythms slither and slide warily around each other; the result is a kind of prickly, strictly platonic flirtatiousness.

On the other hand, Bateman's scenes with Aniston are just on the safe side of crazy-making. Crossing the street one day, he encounters a rambling, obviously crazy New York street-person who sizes him up and deems him "A little man-boy -- a beady-eyed little man-boy." Relaying the episode to Kassie later, he worries that the guy really has him pegged, thanks to some kind of "Tourettes-style truth serum." His anxiety seems to set the very tips of his spiky hair aquiver.

Bateman is wonderful in his scenes with Robinson. Sebastian is a sober child who manifests many of his dad's personality quirks and physical tics, like crossing his legs in a certain way or worrying that he has "hypochondria." Bateman is never upstaged by Robinson, nor does he overwhelm the kid. And he allows, rather honestly, that this child is perhaps more exasperating than he is charming. As your grandmother -- or someone's grandmother -- used to say, The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. In The Switch, Bateman plays a not-so-romantic lead who sometimes makes you want to shake him. And still, he's never been so appealing.

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