Review of Better Living Through Chemistry (2014) by Thomas W — 06 May 2014

Better Living Through Chemistry is one of those "how did they get this cast to sign up for this?" kind of a movie. While there are a few laughs (mostly chuckles) here and there, this dark comedy is more perplexing than anything else as it relies heavily on stereotypical, stock characters put into several unfunny situations because of some horribly poor decisions made on the parts of some rather dimwitted adults.

Small town pharmacist Doug Varney (Sam Rockwell - Moon) is (unhappily) married to overachieving maneater Kara (Michelle Monaghan - Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) -- whom nobody would actually be married to in real life as she is awful.

His sedate existence is forever changed when he makes an evening delivery to bored trophy wife Elizabeth (Olivia Wilde - Rush) ... who eventually teaches him how much fun his profession can actually be (by playing with his inventory).

Doug has a jerk father-in-law (surprise), a misunderstood teenage son ... and his wife is a real witch. Yawn. Jane Fonda (Nine to Five), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), Norbert Leo Butz (Disconnect) and Ben Schwartz ('House of Lies') co-star as other generic characters.

There is nothing new or exciting here -- it is all dangerously dumb. One more thing about the "wife" character -- if I NEVER see another character written like this, it'll be too soon.