Darryl Witherspoon, an economics student at Stratford University, faces a world of uneven odds. He doesn’t enjoy the wealth that his rival Scott Thorpe flaunts, nor the easy advantages of his best friend Tim LaFlour, a straight-edge punk rocker who happens to hold a hockey scholarship. In a striking display of desperation, Darryl is so strapped for cash that he donates four pints of blood in one day (taking on a different character each time) and later provides four vials of sperm in a single day. This is the kind of hunger that defines his scramble to get ahead.
Darryl’s big break arrives when he enters a competition where the prize is a high-paying Wall Street job. The stakes feel personal, and the tension spikes when Scott also joins the contest, making Darryl feel as though his chance is slipping away. Along the way, he navigates relationships and pressure, including his complicated bond with Nim, his girlfriend, who becomes part of the backdrop to his choices.
To gain an edge, Darryl volunteers for a high-paying experiment that tests a drug designed to heighten the five senses. He uses the enhanced perception to stand out, impressing the competition’s supervisor, Mr. Tyson, and even earning a spot on the hockey team as a goalie. The gamble seems to pay off—until one night he takes an extra dose, and the drug begins to misfire. Dr. Thomas Wheedon warns him that only four senses will operate at any given time until the substance leaves his system.
As the side effects mount, Tim grows worried that Darryl might be slipping into heroin use, adding a personal strain to the professional pressure. The loss of sight hits hard in a crucial hockey moment, and Darryl also misreads a social cue, confessing love to the wrong person—his girlfriend’s father—who turns out to be Mr. Tyson. The embarrassment is compounded when, due to the impaired vision, he clumsily performs during a basketball game meant to impress a client. Yet the client is amused by his antics and still signs a contract with the company.
The pressure mounts as Darryl tries to study for the next day’s interview, a moment that will decide his future. He watches Scott study with the help of his father’s wealthy employees, and he notices a key difference: Scott can answer a question but cannot explain the reasoning behind it. The drug’s effects have faded by morning, and all five senses return to normal. In the interview, the competition narrows to Darryl and Scott. Scott answers the same question correctly again, but when asked why, he cannot justify it. Darryl steps in with the correct reasoning and earns the role of junior analyst at Smythe-Bates, though he reveals that he cheated by taking the experimental drug.
A meeting is convened to determine his fate, and Mr. Tyson suggests a path that echoes Tyson’s own climb: start in the mail room. If Darryl serves one year there, he will secure the junior analyst position. The film then skips ahead a year, showing Darryl asking his mother to move into a deluxe apartment, signaling a hard-won, if morally complex, ascent. The story closes with Darryl entering the Smythe-Bates building on his first day, greeted by a familiar-looking doorman who hints at the looping turning points of ambition, opportunity, and consequence.
