Joel (Bateman) has built his flavouring extracts company from the ground up, complete with a goofy staff managed by the distracted Dean (JK Simmons). But all this work has left Joel's marriage to Suzie (Wiig) feeling a bit dry, and his zen-barman pal Dean (Affleck) suggests that he hires a dim gigolo (Milligan) to seduce Suzie and spice things up. Meanwhile, a slinky con artist (Kunis) is working on both Dean and an injured employee (Collins) to get whatever she can.

The clever point at the centre is that reality is undermining Joel's fabulous life: he owns a profitable company and yet his marriage is drifting away, his employees are rising up against him, someone is trying to steal everything he has and his neighbour Nathan (Koechner) is driving him nuts. No wonder he's thinking about selling up and retiring early. Strangely, this seems to be as far as Judge's script has thought it through; premise is everything, as it's all about the situations and interaction rather than the corny plot.

While this character-driven approach feels fresh, it also leaves the film lacking pace or momentum. Affleck's character seems to exist mainly to dispense information about everyone else and make suggestions that push things in mildly humorous directions. Koechner is here just to obnoxiously ruffle Joel's feathers. And side players like Miller's cocky goth and Grant's gossipy shrew merely add wacky texture. Even Gene Simmons only seems to be playing a mild caricature of himself in his scenes.

Even so, the film has some hilarious touches consistently scattered through it. Milligan is a wonderfully beautiful idiot, while Kunis vamps it up right to the end, mercifully avoiding any fake redemptive finale. But essentially this is a gentle comedy of understatement ("This might have been a mistake," says Dean as everything melts down) with moments of inspired black humour (Suzie finally loses her cool with Nathan). It all feels a little half-hearted and goofy, but maybe that's what makes it so recognisable.

themes, language, innuendo, drugs

9.Mar.10