What happens when a sperm donor's sample inconceivably gets swapped for another—without the knowledge of the mom-to-be? In this case, a romantic comedy.
Based on a short story by Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex), The Switch is a modern refutation of the timeworn wisdom of the playground: "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage." Generations of schoolgirls have sung that tune while skipping rope on playgrounds everywhere, and our leading lady Kassie Singleton (Jennifer Aniston) was probably one of them. So when at the age of 40, this successful-but-still-single career woman decides to conceive a child through artificial insemination, she doesn' take kindly to the scoffing of her best friend Wally (Jason Bateman). "I didn't grow up in Minnesota dreaming of the day I'd put an ad on Craigslist for a sperm donor!" she shoots back at him in exasperation.
The Switch has an escapist gloss to it, set in New York and focusing on people with the sorts of jobs that afford them large sun-lit apartments and stress-free single parenting. Though it's not a lifestyle most people can afford (at least not in Manhattan), Kassie's situation is familiar to plenty of thirty- and fortysomething women trying to reconcile their desire to have children with their lack of a husband. Handwringing over the anemic state of modern marriage aside, what's a girl to do when the biological alarm clock starts to ring—and there's still no ring? I see little evidence that many women would prefer to be a single parent if given the option of a healthy marriage. But more and more, my single twentysomething friends, even those with conservative visions of marriage and family life, are looking at their single thirtysomething friends and making contingency plans should they also still be single at that age. Adoption is a popular Plan B.
For Kassie, Plan B is ...
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Historically, evangelicals have been ahead of the curve in women’s education and also way behind it. My pursuit of an MDiv is now part of that mixed legacy.
Hannah Anderson
The Switch
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Historically, evangelicals have been ahead of the curve in women’s education and also way behind it. My pursuit of an MDiv is now part of that mixed legacy.
