It's good customer service when the young chap behind the counter at the local video rental offers to help a customer select a suitable movie, understands instinctively when the customer says 'I'm looking for a movie that does not irritate me', and promptly suggests The Switch.
The front of the DVD jacket tells you 'From the people who brought you 'Juno' and 'Little Miss Sunshine' and the back reads '© 2011'. I put down $7, grabbed a pack of No Salt Kettle Potato Chips for no-guilt binge and headed home ready for an enjoyable evening with a girl's best friend, Jennifer Aniston.
The movie is about Kassie - a self-sufficient single woman who decides she is going to jumpstart family life by having a child through artificial insemination. Her best guy buddy is a loyal and brooding Wally [Jason Bateman] who, intoxicated by some herbal pills Kassie's female best friend handed to him, fumbled the sperm donor setup and decided to put his own 'content' in to the plastic container. Seven years later, he recognised his own 'contribution' through the idiosyncracies of Kassie's neurotic son, Sebastian.
For me, this enjoyable 97-minute entertainment is an affirmation that family cannot be systematically created in a way that disregards relationship, love and genetic mysteries and influences. Material comfort cannot create a happy family anymore than good food creates health - more thought needs to be put to the process for a desirable outcome.