Forced out of her home after her boyfriend is arrested, Joleen Reedy (Charlize Theron) needs a place to stay with her 11-year-old daughter, Tara (AnnaSophia Robb). She turns to her younger brother, James (Nick Stahl) — a simple and trusting young man who doesn’t hesitate to welcome them into his modest apartment.

Almost as soon as she movies in, however, Joleen hits the road with another man. Ill-equipped to be the sole guardian of an adolescent girl, James does his best to make his distraught niece happy. But before long, things spin out of control: He loses his job and Tara is put into foster care.

James makes a fateful decision that will bring his life full circle and force him to face his demons. He takes off with Tara and they assume new identities as father and daughter.

What starts out as a ploy to evade authorities takes on a deeper significance as James strives to become the dad Tara never had, and, for the first time, finds a true purpose in life. But when their road trip takes them to the Utah farm where James grew up, old wounds reopen between James and his father (Dennis Hopper), whose emotionally abusive and sometimes violent ways have changed little since james was a boy.