"The Switch"

Not a single moment rings true in "The Switch", which is unfortunate because it is about a situation in which a lot of women find themselves.

Jennifer Aniston's character, Kassie, is a single, 40-year-old New York TV producer who wants to have a baby but doesn't want to wait around for a man — worse yet, the wrong man — to make that happen. So she turns to a sperm donor, only to have her longtime best friend, the uptight stock trader Wally (Jason Bateman), switch the specimens in a drunken stupor.

Why, you may be wondering, does Wally even have access to the cup that contains the makings of Kassie's future child? Because the whole deal is going down at an insemination party thrown by the movie's obligatory wacky best friend (Juliette Lewis), complete with jokey turkey basters. Like most situations, and like the similarly hokey "The Back-up Plan" from early this year, starring Jennifer Lopez, this one is played in broad, sitcom-like fashion, utterly divorced from the way people behave in real life.

"Baster" is actually the name of the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffrey Eugenides (who also wrote "The Virgin Suicides"), which provides the basis for "The Switch". But the way directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck ("Blades of Glory") play it, there is little humanity to be found, and even less real humour.

Aniston and Bateman both have long, strong TV comedy backgrounds; Aniston, when given smart writing to work with in films like "The Good Girl" and "Friends With Money," has proved herself an actress of unexpected depth. Here, they just get nothing to work with. Their characters are barely drawn types, and in Wally's case, they are barely likeable. Aniston and Bateman have so little chemistry, you actually wonder how their characters ended up friends with each other, much less best friends. Of course, beyond that, Wally's always been secretly in love with Kassie and incapable of connecting with any other woman. He is miserable, which would be fine if he were interesting, but this guy's a dud (and a waste of Bateman's deadpan wit and verbal dexterity).

"The Switch", a Miramax Films release, is rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, sexual material including dialogue, some nudity, drug use and language. Running time: 100 minutes. Now showing at Neptune Theatre.