Grady’s eccentric editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), is in town and desperate for a hit to save his own career. 🎬 Cast & Characters

His wife has just left him, and his mistress—the university chancellor, Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand)—has just informed him she is pregnant.

He must juggle a talented but troubled student, James Leer (Tobey Maguire), who becomes an "agent of chaos" after killing a dog and stealing a rare jacket once owned by Marilyn Monroe.

Grady is seven years overdue on his second novel, which has ballooned to over 2,600 pages with no ending in sight.

The story follows (Michael Douglas), a creative writing professor in Pittsburgh who is having a very rough weekend: