Better Living Through Chemistry

Year 15, Day 269 - 9/26/23 - Movie #4,553

BEFORE: All right, we've got the end of another month coming up - I got a little delayed this past weekend, but I just have to watch three movies in five days, that's not a problem, then I can get some real horror films cleared off of the list.  25 horror films in 31 days will be a tougher challenge, once I factor in three days at NY Comic-Con, two part-time jobs and one vacation, but I'm going to try my best, what else can I do?

Olivia Wilde carries over from "Don't Worry Darling". 

THE PLOT: A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy-wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder. 

AFTER: We're living in a weird time, with both actors and writers out on strike, though it looks now like the writers are close to making a new deal with Big Hollywood which should get them some more streaming royalties and also ensure (maybe) that future screenplays won't be written by Artificial Intelligence or be based solely on the tweets of strippers. Valid concerns, for sure.  And I support unions, though I've never been in one, and I'm on the side of the striking unions, mostly - certainly the executives at Netflix and Sony could get by on HALF of what they're currently earning and still be considered rich people, unless they're all expecting to hold their positions for only one year, so they're all trying to make as much in that one year as humanly possible, because, well, you just never know.  

But then I look at the casting process for a movie, such as this one, and it makes me think - Paul Rudd was originally going to play the lead role here, then he was replaced by Jeremy Renner, who was then replaced by Sam Rockwell.  Jennifer Garner was originally cast to play his girlfriend, but she left the project when she became pregnant, and Olivia Wilde was cast as her replacement. Do you understand, actors? You. Are. All. Replaceable.  I love Sam Rockwell, he did a great job here, he usually does, but he was the third choice, at least in order, if not in preference.  The early bird gets the worm, but the third actor gets the role.  Look at the big picture, though - actors are practically interchangeable, and there's only so much work to go around.  Plus it's a crapshoot, out of all the films that get made, not all of them get completed and released, which may be a good thing, who knows, but it's neither here nor there.  So if the actors get a new deal, congratulations, because that means TV and movies can get made again, and again, I'm 99% on the side of the unionized workers, but they should also be happy JUST to work and have jobs, because not everybody does, and also everyone can be replaced.  And I wonder how much longer the strike would have gone on before Hollywood just started hiring new actors who aren't in the union.

But this film came out in 2014, I'm just getting to it now because it was THAT under the radar - I wasn't even aware of this film until just a few months ago when it started running on cable.  That's the way it goes - you can go hard on movies for 15 years and not even come CLOSE to watching them all.  I just scrolled through the cable listings for this week and found like 25 movies I'd either forgotten about or never heard of that are running now, and honestly, I don't have the DVR space for them.  Movies like "Pain & Gain", "Rocket Science", "Me and Earl & the Dying Girl", "Greta", "The Show", "City Island" and then classics like "Breakdown", "Eve's Bayou" and "The Last Tycoon" - dear God, when will it ever end?  

It's another film that nobody saw - the budget was $5 million and the worldwide gross was just $120,000.  What the hell happened?  Sure, it's no "Gone With the Wind", but it didn't seem THAT bad.  Did it not play at any film festivals?  It feels kind of Sundance-y edgy, but maybe somebody missed an entry deadline?  Was there no marketing budget spent on getting people into theaters?  Or did some executive not think it was sell-able so the studio didn't even try?  Sam Rockwell alone should have been enough to sell this thing, sure this was three years before he won his Oscar, but he should have been enough of a name after films like "Galaxy Quest" and "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". "Matchstick Men"? "Iron Man 2"?  Anyone? 

I don't know, I don't know the magic formula for what makes a film successful in the end - if I did, I'd probably be much further along in my own career, instead of being stuck in the world of indie animation.  Maybe it's about tone, because this film kind of has a weird tone, with a pharmacist who also feels like he's stuck and not in charge of his own career and personal life.  The solution for Doug Varney seems to be to have an affair and start taking drugs recreationally - which seems maybe like dubious advice at best?  Because the screenplay then kind of has to bend itself over both backwards and sideways to make those GOOD moves.  Well, OK, "good" is subjective and so is "better", and so it's tough to tell if his life becomes "better" as opposed to, well, just "different". He gets himself on a DIFFERENT life-path, which some people do when they get tired of the path that they're on. No judgements here. 

And it seems like maybe the first thing they teach you in pharmacist school should be to "never get high on your own supply", but that's what he ends up doing. His wife is so focused on teaching spin classes and winning the town's annual bicycle race that she has no time for him, their sex life is non-existent - but really, no matter how busy she is, if she cared about the relationship, she'd make the time, right?  Or are all marriages just destined to drone on without sex after the thrill is gone?  Couldn't they have tried counseling or something?  She's not interested in being a parent to their troubled teen son, either, pushing that responsibility back on Doug, urging him to "be a man" and talk to his son.  Which he eventually does, but his solution to fixing his mopey son is to go out with him, dressed as ninjas, and commit random acts of vandalism.  Again, surely there must have been a better - sorry, different - solution? 

Doug starts taking drugs so he can have better recreational sex with his new lover, and then also turns to some combination of steroids and oxy to compete against his wife in the town's annual cycling race.  Sure, that puts him back on her radar, and they even return to having sex (he's had more practice now, so sure, have an affair to improve your marriage?) but the damage has already been done, after years of indifference Doug ends up divorced in the end.  It's another mixed message and an open question - is it better to be married and not completely happy or to be divorced and in control of your life?  Is it better for a teen to be raised by two happy parents separately than two miserable ones together? (And WHY are those the only two choices?) Another character mentions that he's been married three times, and still has no idea what he's doing - so, just across the board, it seems like everyone is incapable of learning anything, except through making mistakes?  

So, yeah, it's a weird one to be sure - and the messages are confusing.  Maybe don't build your own personal life plan around what happens in this movie - or any movie, really.  Just as some romances present a too-rosy picture about what happens when you fall in love, this one should be taken just as not-seriously, if it suggests you can improve your life by having an affair, taking a lot of drugs and committing vandalism with your son.  Yet somehow that's what happens here...just keep in mind it's only a story and not really real, I hope. 

Also starring Sam Rockwell (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Michelle Monaghan (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Ray Liotta (last seen in "Sheryl"), Norbert Leo Butz (last seen in "Flag Day"), Ben Schwartz (last seen in "Outside In"), Ken Howard (last seen in "A.C.O.D."), Jane Fonda (last seen in "Air"), Jenn Harris, Harrison Holzer (last seen in "My Friend Dahmer"), Peter Jacobson (last seen in "Domino"), Sonnie Brown (last seen in "Time Out of Mind"), Ron Heneghan, Ken Arnold (last seen in "Men in Black 3"), Tracy McMullan, Bethany Hoffman, Wil Love (last seen in "State of Play"), Michael Shawn Montgomery, Regen Wilson, Richard Pelzman (last seen in "Serial Mom"), Doug Roberts (ditto), Lauren White, Griffin Hogan, Pete Rockwell, Michael J. Begley, Adalia Braydon, Greg Crowe (last seen in "Eighth Grade"), Donald Imm, Darla Robinson, Broocks Willich.

RATING: 5 out of 10 ninja throwing stars