Switched at Birth (1999 TV Movie) User Reviews

Enjoyable Baby Bedlam

[F1ame · 6/10 · 31 July 2001]

So as the title suggests we have a great baby switch in the hospital setting off a lovely chain of events.

It's reasonably easy to produce an average movie with the subject matter. Most of your audience will be thinking, what would I do? So they make their decisions, and the two families get along fine. This leaves you with the irritation of waiting for some totally irrational event to spiral it out of control into a sneering match.

Fortunately it is handled well with no clear cut, we like you... and now we don't. Their interaction fluctuates as you would expect in real life, as in they try to be pleasant and understanding, but ultimately do see things differently.

A Couple of good subplots occur to spice up the mix, making this quite a good film. The trade off with not letting the film drag on over 90 minutes means some of the secondary characters remain one dimensional and bland.

In summary the films starts a bit slow, good in the middle a little annoying at the start of the final act and rounds off... ah haa that would just hint at what the ending might entail. Pleasant.

A baby-switch film with a twist in the tale . . .

[ArleneRimmer · 10/10 · 20 February 2007]

I have seen many films on the subject of switched babies, but this one stands alone because it left me nodding in tearful and smiling acceptance of the outcome. It is worth watching just for that, let alone the character interplay of the four parents, from the complicated rich girl and the put-it-right husband to the optimistic poor girl and the grasping opportunist. Melissa Gilbert usually packs a punch, and this is no exception, although in this film I found the story was so strong that it overshadowed her performance.

The film begins when Sarah and Linda meet in hospital when they are each in labour, and shows how they inadvertently leave with each other's babies. Every mother's nightmare. It isn't until Linda's boyfriend starts causing trouble that the mistake is uncovered, and there follows the rest of the story.

Melissa's character gives most of the small laughs along the way (and there are very few of these overall) with her strict by-the-book parenting. Understandable, really, given that Sarah had been trying for many years to have a child and had read every book on the subject in the intervening years. A contrast to Linda, who fell pregnant by accident and was dogged by her son's father throughout the film.

The battle of all (well, two) mothers has begun...

[Victor Field · 7 June 2002]

"Switched at Birth" (or "Mistaken Identity," as it's known in some English-speaking countries outside the US) is a decent TV movie that takes a restrained look at a topic played for laughs in "Big Business" and for horror in "The Omen": happily married Melissa Gilbert and separated Rosanna Arquette give birth in the same hospital at the same time, but their newborn sons get the wrong ID tags, leading to trouble for both families in the months to come.

When this first aired on American TV, someone on the Internet suggested that having Rosanna play one of the two main roles was "throwing men a bone," but even if the charming Miss Arquette wasn't in it the movie would have been a perfectly acceptable way of killing an hour and a half (which is not to say she wasn't a key factor in my tuning in). Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner's script tries to avoid melodrama, and if it doesn't always succeed it does keep away from the suds long enough to make it moving instead of nauseating. Though one wishes Arquette's ex-husband had a bit more dimension to him like Grace's similarly inclined ex on "Grace Under Fire," at least the tale isn't muckraking.

All in all, a higher quality than Douglas Barr experienced when he was in front of the camera on "The Fall Guy." Viewers looking to be disturbed, however, will have to settle for Melissa Gilbert's appearance - Rosanna Arquette is actually five years older than the Artist Formerly Known As Halfpint, but you'd never guess it from the evidence displayed here.