Meet Bill

The story of a man (Aaron Eckhart) grappling with middle-age ennui at work and at home feels done to death, as does the distracting addition of a spunky rich-kid high schooler.

It tries hard to mimic the arch tone of the best suburban tragicomedies (American Beauty, et al.), but a surfeit of stock characters, double-wide plot holes and heavy-handed symbolism ruins the effect.

This movie never should have seen the light of day.

Male midlife crisis presents as pathological self-loathing in Meet Bill, an imperative to which the only sane response is: No thanks.

Even a hilarious turn by Kristen Wiig as the owner of a doughnut company can't save this cliched, meandering story from playing like American Beauty lite.