Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Extract is a quirky indie film that I managed to enjoy, despite its very flawed premise.

Written/directed by Mike Judge, and starring Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, and Mila Kunis, this film examines a marriage and a factory, both having its share of problems.

Joel (Bateman) and Suzie (Kristen Wiig) have hit a dry spell in their marriage.  Let's just say sparks haven't flown for a very long time.  Joel's tired of his wife's coolness.  And she just seems too bored, and too uninspired to even try anymore.  Something's got to give!  Sadly, Joel seeks counsel from his stoner buddy Dean (Affleck).  And under the influence of drugs and alcohol, Joel and Dean come up with a plan: hire a handsome guy to seduce Suzie.  She'll have an affair, and that will free Joel up to have an affair, without any guilt.  And it just so happens that Joel has his ‘affair partner' picked out already: the sexy Cindy (Kunis).  What could possibly go wrong?

Joel is also facing a few problems at work.  He owns the local extract factory, but his love of food flavorings isn't enough to keep him happy anymore.  The line workers are grumbling, his manager's heartless, and maybe the time is just right to sell the factory. Things take a major spin when an unfortunate accident leaves a worker injured.  Unfortunately for Joel, the man is taking advice from the sexy Cindy.  And Cindy is all about the money, pushing the man to sue the factory for all it's worth.

The rest of the movie follows Joel as these various issues take their toll on him.  The plan to ‘help' his marriage takes some unexpected twists.   And Cindy is definitely not who he thinks she is.  Along the way, Joel will learn to appreciate what's really important - both in a marriage, and in a job.  But, in some ways, those lessons will come too late.

I enjoyed Bateman in this role.  His quiet manner, and innocent ways, coupled with the very manipulative Dean pulling his strings made for some rather humorous moments.  Nothing that would cause major laugh-out-loud moments.  But there were quite a few smiles and smirks.  Affleck was fun to watch, too.  With his long hair, and little baggie of pills in every size and color, this was really a fun role to see Affleck take.

I also enjoyed the scenes with Joel's annoying, wacky neighbor, played by David Koechner.  I've had neighbors like that - people who take "friendly" to an extreme, people who just beg to have doors shut in their faces, and still come back for more abuse the next day. Koechner stole every one of those scenes. 

So, yes, there was a lot that I enjoyed about this movie.  But I can't get past the premise.  The very idea of a man hiring someone to seduce his wife, so that he can fool around without any guilt.  I know that they went to great lengths to show that Joel's character was not in his right mind when he set up this plan.  Still, I found it unrealistic, and absolutely ridiculous.  Further, both Joel and Suzie seem like decent people.  Intelligent, hard-working, all-around good people.  So why couldn't they talk to each other?  Why can't they communicate, and try to fix the problems in their marriage, instead of resorting to such extreme measures.  We're shown the problems from Joel's point of view only.  We see his frustration with the situation.  But we're never shown one moment where he actually talks to his wife.  This unrealistic and distasteful premise brought the entire movie down, for me.  I simply had trouble "buying" it.

That said, I actually thought the scenes at the factory were well-done and fairly realistic.  Yes, the workers fall into various stereotypes, but these scenes came off as much more real to me than the ones with Joel and Suzie's marriage.

Overall, it's not the worst way to spend 90 minutes.  The movie definitely has a Mike Judge look and feel to it.  So if you enjoy his movies (Office Space, Idiocracy) you will likely enjoy this one, too.  I enjoyed it, even though the premise was a bit ‘off'.


Idiocracy

Recommended: Yes