Better Living Through Chemistry (2014)

Way back last century DuPont's advertising phrase was a variant of e "Better Living Through Chemistry". They adopted it in 1935 and it was their slogan until 1982. The title of this movie is a play on that theme.Sam Rockwell is small city pharmacist Doug Varney. He is married to the daughter of the owner of the pharmacy, who is now retiring, and Doug is set to become the main man. Doug is a nice guy, helpful to others, keeps their medical secrets, and does everything by the book. His wife is Michelle Monaghan as Kara Varney and she and Doug started casual bicycling when their son was young, as a way to get outside for a bit of exercise and fresh air. But Kara got carried away over time, she found out she was good at cycling, began training hard, opened an exercise parlor, competed to win every race, and when we meet them Doug and Kara don't have a very close relationship.One day the unreliable delivery boy doesn't finish the day's prescriptions deliveries and Doug has to step and finish. One client is younger and prettier Olivia Wilde as Elizabeth Roberts. She seems to be a wealthy semi-abandoned and lonely woman who takes a quick liking to Doug, but he is cautious and manages to leave.Well if that would be the end of the story then we would not have any movie at all. Eventually Doug gives in to her charms, and she teaches him to compound certain drugs to get a better effect for everything. This creates some issues in both families, and a brush with the DEA needing to account for drug inventory irregularities, but in the end it is sort of like Lester Burnham in "American Beauty", he becomes a totally different person, but Doug doesn't get shot and killed in the end.I found it on Netflix streaming movies. There is a narrator of sorts throughout and it turns out to be Jane Fonda as herself, and near the end we see her as a customer of the pharmacy.Just an "OK" movie, the overall message isn't necessarily a good one.

Protagonist is a positive person, which is an under-heel-guy, doing everything to please his wife and her parents. Very common situation.In some moment another woman pushes him in right direction to change: to become a free-spirit person and start taking care about himself. Of course, it was not a very healthy way - meaning there were some drugs involved. But again, the situation shown is quite truthful: if we want good changes - sometimes it's not possible to do EVERYTHING right all the way, agree? Of course, there are some lucky coincidences which help our main character to come out clean from all the problems finally. But once more: haven't you ever had situations in your life, when you are very close to get into troubles when trying to make things better and finally as a reward for all your trials you are saved in some magic way? :) All in all, this movie is very positive. It let you dream when watching it, but easily gets you back to reality when it ends. With pleasant thoughts.

PLOT Small town pharmacist Douglas Varney (Sam Rockwell) is tired of his uneventful life, his bitchy wife Kara (Michelle Monaghan) and don't really take time for their distant 12-year-old son Ethan (Harrison Holzer). He spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer Elizabeth (Olivia Wilde) who takes him on a joyride involving sex and drugs. They want to run away together but one of them may change their mind.REVIEW Well... let's just say actors are trying very hard to make this a nice little comedy (Sam is really good) but sadly their hard work is pretty much wasted. Film strives to be some kind of witty cool comedy-drama but it's just not. Nothing that we haven't seen before, rare funny moments, unnecessary Jane Fonda narration. After first 15 minutes you're like: 'I can't watch this crap anymore', but when you go on, it gets a little better, the ending and the message are solid. Some twists were also not clichéd and I appreciate that. Still, average flick that you can forget easily. You need to take chances in life but I'm not sure you need to take chance on this film.More on blog - http://somewhereibelong-arya.blogspot.com

This romantic comedy was extraordinary.The plot twists were not clichéd.Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde were fantastic. Just a pure gold acting performance. Ray Liotta acting as a nice guy was quite odd to watch, but also exciting, he really did the job well. And the whole acting crew in general did not mess up in general, very entertaining.I really enjoyed my time watching the movie. And maybe would like to re-watch it again in the future(which I practically never do). If you are looking for a cheerful, fascinating time,the suggestion is, watch the movie.I would recommend this movie for anyone. Thumbs up! If it is possible that somebody from the movie crew is reading this, then, thank you for the ecstatic 91 minutes.