You have to admit, that despite her annoying flaws, Jennifer Aniston knows how to work the science of Hollywood success, succumbing to the same role at an average of two films a year. She does rom coms and she does them well. I get tired of her, and I get tired of her romance – Marley and Me aside – but this time, she’s actually sentimental and refreshing. In this….it’s “seven years ago” when our story opens on Kassie (Anniston) a ticking-clock of a thirty-something-year-old who wants to have a baby. She’s lunching with her best friend, Wally (Jason Bateman) who’s neurotic, self-absorbed, a man-child, and a complete hypochondriac, but he is adorable. But now he’s been placed in the best pal comfort zone so there’s no chance she’ll choose him to father her child, even though they dated centuries ago. And besides, he sees everything as doom and gloom, while she sees everything as “Life’s in session” so let’s live it. But when her best pal Debbie (Juliette Lewis) throws a baby [sperm] donor party and apparently the very sexy Roland (Patrick Wilson) is the man who will um, do the deed, as the party lingers on, Bateman isn’t buying into it. He decides to do a ‘switch’ of sorts, and next thing we know, but THEY don’t know, he’s fathered Anniston’s child, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson.) And this is where the movie flowers into something delicate, special and sentimental. It’s far from the angry Kate Hudson-ish tug-of-war films. Or even Anniston’s own recent Gerard Butler flop called The Bounty Hunter. This one is more a throwback to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks kind of sweet. Here we have real people, with real feeling who handle life gently and lovingly. No angry spats, no glasses full of wine tossed in faces, no bickering, no deliberate cheating. This is a special tale and one of the better rom coms of the summer with an original twist. BTW, Jeff Goldblum as Bateman’s best friend from the office is hilarious and dry, in a Vince Vaughn kind of way. Three tiaras
