"Prof. Tripp" (Michael Douglas) hasn't his troubles to seek. He hasn't been able to follow up on his first novel for almost seven years - much to the chagrin of his agent "Terry" (Robert Downey Jr); his third wife has left him and he is about to father a child with his (married) boss (Frances McDormand) at the university where he works. His writer's block isn't really much helped by the omnipresence of his star pupil "James" (Tobey Maguire) nor by his increasingly debilitating pot habit. It's the man's mid life crisis from hell, but can he navigate a way out of this and keep some semblance of h... read the rest.