Bill and Julie live in thrifty middle-class wedded bliss with their 12-year-old son Sean. Julie brings home the bacon while Bill keeps house and frets over his never-ending PhD thesis: an anthropological study of the role of men in society. All is relatively well until Julie's ex-fiancé, the dashing and successful Blake Morgan, returns to Winnipeg with his wife and kids. While Bill takes solace in Blake's premature grey and pot belly, next to Blake's professional success Bill feels emasculated and questions what it means to be a man especially a domesticated one. Suddenly he starts seeing himself and his neighbours also stay-at-home dads with successful working wives, as research subjects for his thesis. Having reached a breakthrough in his PhD procrastination, Bill launches into a series of embarrassing, ridiculous, and goofy attempts to finish his "research," prove himself a mature and capable husband and father, and above all, prove his manliness. Rather than look directly in the mirror, Bill creatively tries to save his neighbours Dave and Paul, from self-destructive home-renos and delusional dream careers.