Have you ever looked around at your life and realized that it didn't turn out the way you thought it would? Sure, everyone has, and while most people would just chalk it up to a healthy dose of reality, small town pharmacist Douglas Varney (Sam Rockwell) is searching for something more. He's not entirely sure what that something is, until a chance meeting with local millionaire's wife Elizabeth (Olivia Wilde) results in the type of mind-blowing, toe-curling sex that he's only dreamed about.
The fact that Doug is married should serve as a major deterrent to this sort of activity, but when his wife (Michelle Monaghan) is a highly competitive cyclist who doles out sex and respect in equal amounts (read: none at all), it's easy to see why this lonely schlub would be driven into the arms of a femme fatale. It doesn't hurt that Doug's place of business gives him unfettered access to a wide array of prescription drugs, and soon he and Elizabeth fall into a steady cycle of psychotropic carnality.
The illicit affair instills a newfound confidence in Doug, and much like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, he begins to rebel against everything and everyone that has been holding him back all these years. The always charismatic Rockwell radiates cool from every pore as he struts from scene to scene, a cigarette drooping lazily from his lip as he schemes to beat his wife at her own game: a local bike race dubbed the Tour de Woodbury, which she has never lost.
There are a few other side plots, including an ill-conceived murder plot and a surprisingly sweet moment that finds Doug bonding with his troubled, distant 12-year-old son, but the crux of this film is Doug's transformation from put-upon loser to swaggering, cocky bad boy. Rockwell takes the ball and runs with it, and the effective (if underutilized) supporting cast gives him plenty of room to put his own stamp on this familiar story.
The fact that Doug is married should serve as a major deterrent to this sort of activity, but when his wife (Michelle Monaghan) is a highly competitive cyclist who doles out sex and respect in equal amounts (read: none at all), it's easy to see why this lonely schlub would be driven into the arms of a femme fatale. It doesn't hurt that Doug's place of business gives him unfettered access to a wide array of prescription drugs, and soon he and Elizabeth fall into a steady cycle of psychotropic carnality.
The illicit affair instills a newfound confidence in Doug, and much like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, he begins to rebel against everything and everyone that has been holding him back all these years. The always charismatic Rockwell radiates cool from every pore as he struts from scene to scene, a cigarette drooping lazily from his lip as he schemes to beat his wife at her own game: a local bike race dubbed the Tour de Woodbury, which she has never lost.
There are a few other side plots, including an ill-conceived murder plot and a surprisingly sweet moment that finds Doug bonding with his troubled, distant 12-year-old son, but the crux of this film is Doug's transformation from put-upon loser to swaggering, cocky bad boy. Rockwell takes the ball and runs with it, and the effective (if underutilized) supporting cast gives him plenty of room to put his own stamp on this familiar story.