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It’s time to create a subheading within the already controversial chick-flick genre, and it’s the “fertility-focused film.”

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As recent statistics show a notable increase in the number of 40-something women who are conceiving in middle age, it’s no real surprise the drama attached to dwindling follicle counts and ebbing estrogen levels is striking a common chord.

From Jennifer Lopez’s The Back-up Plan to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Baby Mama, we’re seeing several A-list actors catch a ride on the baby carriage, because it seems to be good business — not just for the high-tech hatchery near you, but for the movie business in general.

Once upon a time, baby comedies were geared around diaper gags, “Who’s your daddy?” and the basic life question of conception itself: “To breed or not to breed?”

Now, we move past that question in the opening act, because no one has time to waste — especially not Kassie Larson (Jennifer Aniston), the 40-year-old single mother at the centre of this romantic comedy.

Kassie is 40 and single. She wants kids, but she also wants to know the father. To realize her long-held dream, she turns to her friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis), who arranges an insemination party for her good buddy.

Now, there were a lot of places this script could have gone, and, fortunately, it stays above the waistband as it offers up a very familiar dilemma: Wally Mars (Jason Bateman) has been Kassie’s best friend for years. The two New Yorkers have shared the very best and the very worst of times, and when Kassie spurns Wally’s sperm for that of a generic hunk (Patrick Wilson), Wally takes it personally.

In a moment of drunken idiocy, he replaces the hunk’s junk for his own.

Boldface plot twists that depend on extended lies are typically the toughest to pull off, because the design is so tired. We can already imagine the scene where Wally tries to tell Kassie the truth, but is cut off at just the wrong moment.

We can already feel the tender moment of secret father-son bonding, and director Will Speck (Blades of Glory) doesn’t disappoint. He delivers every single scrap of cliche you could possibly hope for, or shy away from — depending on your overall take on Hollywood formula.

To his credit, despite the burden of so much formulaic baggage, Speck does create some truly emotional moments, thanks to Bateman, an actor who wears the disappointments of middle age like an Armani jacket.

Successfully transitioning from bratty kid actor to serious thespian in the wake of Juno, Bateman has emerged as a multi-dimensional performer who isn’t afraid of looking weak, stupid or small.

It’s not always pretty, but it always feels convincingly real, and that’s a large part of what makes The Switch worth watching. Not to drag Aniston over the coals or anything (the poor gal’s been through enough, already), but she fails to meet the dramatic watermark left by Bateman.

As the single mom with a cute son and endless courage and strength, Aniston’s Kassie is the secular answer to Mother Teresa. She is all-loving and all-desirable and all alone.

The part isn’t all that demanding, and yet, Aniston makes every scene look difficult, because she lacks the same range as her talented co-star. When she should look overwhelmed and confused, she looks irritated. When she should be oozing maternal love, she looks more like someone picking up her kid after a chatty pedicure.

In short, she doesn’t always feel sincere, and while that could be a believable part of her self-obsessed character, she fails to own the whole performance. Kassie never emerges as a fully developed character, and that means Bateman is left to do the heavy scene lifting on his own.

He’s up to the task, and creates some truly funny, touching and revealing male moments as he shows us a man accepting his own limitations. Jeff Goldblum backs him up as a well-tailored buddy, and the result is a film that — irony of ironies — works better as a bro-mance than any brand of chick flick.

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