Carnegie Mellon English Studies Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a widowed parent of his alienated college son, James (Ashton Holmes), overachieving high school daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page), and sibling to his adopted ne'er-do-well brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) that he cannot evade enough. The professor is bitter, arrogant, self-absorbed and uninterested in his students; this does not help him when he parks illegally on campus, his car is impounded and does not pay his fine before getting to the college impound lot watched by a flunked former student.