The Details

Ten years after their wedding, Jeff (Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire) and his beautiful wife Nealy Lang (Elizabeth Banks) have a lovely house in an idyllic suburb. However, their marriage is simmering on the back burner. When a family of hungry raccoons ransacks their perfect garden, Jeff becomes obsessed with exterminating these pests by any means necessary. Soon, the relentless rodents force him into a power struggle with his suggestive neighbor (Laura Linney). Add to that an affair with a friend (Kerry Washington), whose husband (Ray Liotta) demands that Jeff take responsibility—and suddenly the seemingly bourgeois family man is entangled in a mess of infidelity, blackmail, organ donation, and other seemingly abstruse problems... This star-studded suburban satire cleverly plays on the discrepancy between perfect facades and inner chaos. The smallest wrong decisions trigger increasingly bizarre chain reactions until Jeff's life is suddenly turned upside down morally. In this beautifully biting mixture of dark humor and all kinds of absurdities, the actors are convincing even in small supporting roles – Ozark actress Laura Linney appears as an eccentric, infantile neighbor – and make the film an unusual genre mix that takes a satirical look at the moral decay of American suburbs.