The year is 1907 and the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan is a popular resort for people looking to get healthy. Its owner/operator is Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins), inventor of the cornflake and proponent of bowel therapy. Eleanor (Bridget Fonda) and Will (Matthew Broderick) Lightbody are the latest of many visitors to "The San". They've come to find a general cure for whatever ails them which is just fine because The San doesn't attempt to diagnose any particular illness. It uses questionable methods and outlandish contraptions to reach its goals.
That's as close to a plot as the film ever comes. There is a secondary plot (I hesitate to call it a sub-plot because its links with the main story are negligible) involving a young man (John Cusack) who has journeyed to Battle Creek to start, with the aid of partners (Michael Lerner & Dana Carvey), his own breakfast cereal company. This co-plot is even more pointless and dull than the main story, if such a thing is possible.
"The Road to Wellville" has a disturbing preoccupation with sex which is even more pervasive than its disturbing preoccupation with human excretion. The whole thing is really in the worst of taste, not made any the more palatable by the fact that the film is, at heart, a screwball comedy. Surprisingly, Anthony Hopkins' presence in the film doesn't make it watchable and it's Dana Carvey who comes off the best. All things considered, this stinkeroo is easily one of the worst films of the year.