Waking Up in Reno

Waking Up in Reno is a 2002 American road comedy-drama film directed by Jordan Brady and starring Natasha Richardson, Billy Bob Thornton, Patrick Swayze, and Charlize Theron. The screenplay by Brent Briscoe and Mark Fauser focuses on two redneck couples taking a road trip from Little Rock to Reno to see a monster truck rally. Plot Lonnie Earl Dodd is a Little Rock car dealer who stars in his own cheesy television commercials. He and his wife Darlene are best friends with Roy and Candy Kirkendall, who are trying to start a family. When the two couples decide to drive cross-country to see a monster truck rally, Lonnie Earl pulls a new SUV off his lot and the four set off. En route, they stop at an Amarillo, Texas restaurant where Lonnie Earl is determined to win a free dinner by consuming a 72-ounce steak and all the trimmings within an hour. Darlene longs to see the Grand Canyon, but Lonnie Earl insists they stick to their schedule and refuses to fulfill her dream. It becomes increasingly clear Darlene is living timidly in her husband's shadow, kowtowing to his demands and accepting his verbal and emotional abuse without complaint. In Reno, a fortune teller tells Candy she is expecting a baby, and she buys several home pregnancy tests to see if she is right. She's overjoyed when all the results are positive, but complications arise when Roy calls Doc Tuley for the results of a fertility test he took before leaving home. Roy is told he's sterile, and therefore clearly not the father of Candy's child.