The Switch
12A, Nationwide
As a rule, Richard Burton acted stupendously well in stupendously bad films. Jennifer Aniston has mastered half that duality. The Switch, her latest film, is comfort-zone Aniston: a charmless rom-com with a crass attempt at eroticism — Toy Story’s more titillating, to be honest.
Cliché is The Switch’s currency. A pallid dawn rises over New York’s landmarks and we are taken back seven years. It is breakfast time. An aging girl-next-door (Aniston) tells her lachrymose friend and former lover Wally (Jason Bateman) that she is seeking a sperm donor. ‘The clock has struck,’ she says, to crown the cliché. Cue three minutes of scrotal innuendo, references to cervical mucus and the inevitable semen gag that was so banal I’ve forgotten it.
Naturally, Aniston won’t countenance asking for the pining Bateman’s sperm because the film wouldn’t last 20 minutes if she did.
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