The characters in The Switch seem to live in an alternate reality, as if a switch was pulled to plunge them into a place like Earth, but not quite.

　　 To clarify, this is a romantic comedy, not a sci-fi adventure tale. But the actions, choices and general behavior of the characters are oddly removed from what goes in the real world.

　　 For starters, Jennifer Aniston plays Kassie, a single New York City TV producer who opts to have a baby by artificial insemination. She has halfheartedly given up on finding a husband, but her choice to become a mother is made with about as much consideration as buying a sofa. Didn't Jennifer Lopez play essentially the same role this year in The Back-Up Plan? Only in the movies are glamorous, 40ish single women leaping into single parenthood via sperm donation.

　　 Aniston returns to tired form here. She seems drawn to forgettable roles in such generic romantic comedies as Love Happens and He's Just Not That Into You. She's better playing against type in such offbeat films as The Good Girl (2002) and Friends With Money (2006) but seems intent on stamping out rom-com parts in cookie-cutter fashion.

　　 Kassie throws an insemination party and invites Roland, the handsome donor (Patrick Wilson), to gather and deliver his donation. Who does that?

　　 Amid this craziness is Kassie's best friend, Wally (Jason Bateman), a mildly neurotic stockbroker, depicted as an "undateable" sad sack. The fact that he's handsome,（英文影评） smart, funny, kind and a true friend to Kassie is immaterial. Kassie rejects his offer to be her sperm donor because he's too close of a friend. Who are these people?

　　 Bateman essentially carries the film, his charm and intelligence intact throughout the predictable fluff.

　　 The story is adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides' Baster. As directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon, the duo responsible for Blades of Glory, it's a bastardized reworking that renders Aniston's part particularly colorless.

　　 Things liven up in the second half of the film. Moving home to Minnesota, Kassie returns with sad-eyed 6-year-old Sebastian (a wonderful Thomas Robinson). Bateman and Robinson are adorable together, exhibiting far more convincing chemistry than either of them does with Aniston.

　　 The movie's most sweetly original and amusing sequence involves Wally helping rid Sebastian of head lice. Their scenes together are the only reason to see the movie.

　　 Sometimes movies mimic real life, revealing hidden truths about the human condition. This is not one of those times.