Wednesday, September 22, 2010

CoincidĂȘncias do Amor (The Switch)

      I watched The Switch in Brazil though the title has been changed to something completely bizarre, CoincidĂȘncias do Amor (Coincidences of Love). Why, who knows maybe there isn’t a word in Portuguese that means Switch or cheesy romantic comedy. I mean, most romantic comedies are cheesy so I guess that was redundant. Then again, romantic comedies aren't supposed to make you rethink your life, quit your job and move to NYC and start a punk rock band. They are supposed to do something though but what, no one knows.

      The movie is about a pregnancy but all movies these days has to have at least one person knocked up in it, it seems. Every since the superior movie Knocked Up came out 2 years ago there has been an onslaught of these movies showing how inadequate people deal with the little parasites. I guess if you think about it this has been going on longer than the last 2 years, I remember Hugh Grant had that movie with Julianne Moore 9 Months (I thought it was a sequel to 9 1/2 Weeks) or something back in the 90’s. There was also Father of the Bride 2 were both mother and daughter were pregnant and I am sure I am missing a few in between 1990 and 2010. I guess Switch is different in that it has the awkward “how she got pregnant” scenes and then skips 7 years later to the kid being 6 years old. So we miss out on Jennifer Aniston wearing a ridiculous latex pregnant belly appliance, the funny building the crib buying toys scene, the breathing scene, the stupid rushing to the hospital scene, the hilarious I don't want to be a dad scenes and the funny comic relief doctor scenes. Right past all that bullshit and straight into the comedy and romance.
     I have to give the movie some props for deviating from the mold of the last 20 years of oops I'm pregnant films. They even kind of deviate from the romantic comedy mold by not making Jason Bateman such a loser that in real life he would never get the girl. He is just a little neurotic, not a pot smoking, beer guzzling slob whose friends are either the fat guy or the nervous guy. Which is funny if you think about it because the guy that has been playing nervous guy for the last 5 years used to play Jason's son in Arrested Development.
     The only time I thought the movie got boring was when it was focusing on Jennifer Aniston. When we are with Bateman it gets at least some chuckles but when we stick with Jennifer it kind of just hits bottom. Probably because she isn't really all that funny or interesting which isn't her fault, they didn't hire Meryl Strep and Jennifer Aniston plays the role just right, pretty, successful and able to get a huge apartment in NYC plus a TV executive job even after being out of the business for 7 years. Like I said in the beginning it is a romantic comedy, the Light Beers of movies so we can't really expect to get drunk on watching it. Though in her defense, the scene in which she gets locked outside in a sheer white nightgown in chilly NYC was probably the best acting I have seen in a long time.
     So even though I wouldn't suggest it unless you are just a Bateman fan I would say rent it or steal it off the internet if you have time to kill.