Bad Romance: THE SWITCH and GOING THE DISTANCE

If I had to pick just one genre that has had the worst 2010 thus far, I would look no further than the romantic comedy. The bar has been considerably lowered by the likes of The Bounty Hunter, The Back-Up Plan, Killers, She’s Out of My League, Valentine’s Day, Leap Year, and When in Rome. I got frustrated and disappointed just typing that list and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. Until now, I’ve overlooked The Switch and Going the Distance, two recent rom-coms that are fading fast at the box office. But, being who I am, I’ve caught up with them. After all, the genre’s downward trend has to break sometime.

Directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck follow up their middling Will Ferrell figure-skating comedy Blades of Glory with The Switch, a romantic comedy that hinges on Jason Bateman putting his ingredients in Jennifer Aniston’s sperm donor sample cup. It’s not as bad as it sounds. See, Bateman carries a torch for his platonic best friend Aniston, so when he gets drunk at her artificial insemination party, already jealous that she turned down his sample on account of his “neuroses,” he knocks over the sample provided by the athletic and confident Patrick Wilson. And really, does Bateman have another choice? Or, at least, is there another choice that a drunken jealous guy could think up?

Yes, the concept’s kind of icky and could easily go very wrong. Indeed, the first several minutes of the film, which sets up the will-they-won’t-they chemistry between Bateman and Aniston and then sets up the central concept, are definitely worrisome. The film seems to be treading towards an uncomfortable place (and not in a funny way), especially when the single-mom-to-be decides to move away. But then, a small miracle happens. The film skips forward seven years and gets good. Aniston moves back with a seven-year-old boy in tow, a precocious, neurotic, hypochondriac of a child. It’s clear right away who the real father is, but the movie doesn’t press the plot into hysterics or wild avoidance maneuvers. Instead, this becomes as calm and character-based as a standard high-concept studio comedy is allowed to be.

The film is slight without ever feeling disposable, amusing without ever becoming hilarious. Bateman and Aniston have a lovely chemistry and it’s their warmth and camaraderie that keep the plot from feeling uncomfortable. Why, they are as believable as you could imagine two oblivious soul mates that need a sperm-related mix-up and seven years apart to realize their true love. What is uncomfortable in the abstract becomes gentle and likable in the specifics on the strength of the cast (especially Jeff Goldblum, who brings some of his trademarked spacey syncopation to line readings) and the solidness of Allan Loeb’s writing. (Though Loeb does step wrong in forcing Bateman to recite some very terrible narration as a framing device).

But perhaps even more than the strength of the leads, the film works because of the great performance from Thomas Robinson as the little boy. Because the film is more about the boy and not his conception, it allows for a deeper resonance in the emotions. Robinson’s interactions with Bateman are charming where most cute-kid plots turn cloying. This isn’t just a romance between two friends who slowly realize their friendship runs deeper. This is also a romance about parenthood, about a father who grows to love his child. And that’s what sets it apart, making this otherwise airy, awkward film so enjoyable.

Going the Distance, however, is not a good example of the romantic comedy, continuing the year’s dispiriting trend. In fact, this is a movie that slowly, methodically drove me nuts with a torturous drip of underwhelming scenes. It’s about how a recently dumped record-company employee (Justin Long) and a struggling reporter (Drew Barrymore) meet cute at a bar’s arcade game, start a whirlwind romance montage, and then spend most of the rest of the movie in a long-distance relationship. The pieces are there for a good movie that doesn’t materialize. It’s never bad in any spectacular or notable ways. There’s just a dull ache of missed opportunities that curdles into a desire for a fast-forward button.

The movie dies a death of a thousand mediocrities. By the time, much to my relief, the credits showed up, I realized I could count the number of times I smiled on one hand. Most of the fleeting enjoyment came care of Christina Applegate, Jim Gaffigan, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, and Ron Livingston, who are each given just one note to play. Documentarian Nanette Burstein makes her fiction-feature debut here. She should stick to documentaries if she can’t get a better script than this. Geoff LaTulippe’s screenplay is thoroughly unimaginative, falling back on standard rom-com moments (Long actually runs through an airport!). From time to time we get lucky and the script falls back on bad dialogue, bland raunchy discussions, or montages instead. There’s still hope for the rom-com genre, but none to be found here.

When a Problem Comes Along: WHIP IT

It’s always risky for an established actor to take on directorial duties. They could become the next Clint Eastwood or the next C. Thomas Howell, and it’s nearly impossible to tell which kind they’ll be until the finished product is available for scrutiny. Luckily for Drew Barrymore, her directorial debut is Whip It, a fast-paced, crowd-pleaser that announces her as a director to watch. She generously allows the actors in the film room to breathe, room to explore their characters in deeper and more unexpected ways than you would think would be allowed film that, prior to viewing, sounds so schematic and predictable.

Ellen Page stars as a sassy small-town teen who feels stuck in her world of beauty pageants and standardized tests until she discovers an outlet she never knew she needed at a roller derby. It sounds like a typical coming-of-age, parents-don’t-get-it, teen sports movie, and indeed it has all the beats that such a film would require like the moment where the adolescent lead finds a secret thrill in a new passion, the moment where the mismatched group of outsiders take the teen into their group, the moment where the parents find out about what their kid has really been doing all this time. (See: Saturday Night Fever, Breaking Away, etcetera). And yet, the movie isn’t a typical example of that type, hitting those beats in unexpectedly refreshing and satisfying ways. If it’s not quite Breaking Away, and it isn’t, it’s not for lack of trying.

Page gives her best performance yet (yes, including her Oscar-nominated turn in Juno), giving her character a depth and a yearning that ring true. It also helps that she’s surrounded by wonderful acting. Alia Shawkat (Maebe in Arrested Development) plays her best friend, their rapport also ringing true. Every time they share the screen, it feels like watching two old friends in the way they subtly read each other’s moods, keep long-running jokes moving even farther, warbling along with the radio, and breaking down into fits of giggling. It’s a relationship that feels so truthful, that when a cute guy (Landon Pigg) comes along, making eyes at Page, I genuinely cared about how he would change the girls’ friendship.

Like the friendship, Page’s interactions with her parents hit a particularly truthful nerve in the mixture of awkward candor and unfathomable love that often develops between a teenager and parents. There’s a core of mutual respect in their relationship that feels right. Daniel Stern, as her father, has a loveably awkward sense of a father struggling with connecting to his teenage daughter, careful to say the right thing, desperately wanting to not seem desperate in his attempts to stay an important figure in her life. Marcia Gay Harden, as her mother, is not some stage-mother stereotype, despite early scenes that threaten to push her in that direction. Instead, she’s a woman who very much wants her daughter to succeed. She’s not closed-minded; she merely stubbornly wants her daughter to be great. There’s a feeling of genuine love in the parent-child relationship on display here, not just snarky dysfunction that’s so often a teen-movie cop out. A quiet dialogue scene that finds Harden and Page sitting on the floor of their kitchen, engaging in an intense heart-to-heart, is one of the most memorable scenes I saw in any movie of 2009.

It’s memorable because Barrymore knows the strengths of her actors and the strengths of the script by Shauna Cross. She hasn’t drained her movie of stylistic flourish, but she isn’t suffering from first-time director look-what-I-can-do waywardness either. She knows when she can set up a fairly simple dialogue scene and trust that her actors will more than carry the moment. This is an enormously entertaining film as a result, with a smart, fast-paced script and great actors to perform it. The great indie-rock soundtrack and the vibrant colors are only an added bonus.

Speaking of added bonus, there’s the roller derby girls themselves. Played by the likes of Kristen Wiig, Eve, Zoe Bell, Juliette Lewis, Ari Graynor and Drew Barrymore (humbly giving herself a bit part), the athletes have great sense of comedic timing and are an energetic source of frenzied fun on and off the track, even if they are forced into a food fight in the one wrong note the movie manages to hit. Characters on the periphery of the derby are entertaining as well, especially a goofy announcer (Jimmy Fallon) and a sarcastic but supportive coach (Andrew Wilson). But, even with such minor male influences, this movie is a blast of girl-power gusto. Whip It is a hugely entertaining experience, a kind of feel-good movie that doesn’t go out of its way to make you feel good. I just had no other option when confronted with a movie so endearing, energetic, and sweet. This is the kind of movie that could have felt common, but is instead told uncommonly well.