A teenager at a personal crossroads finds himself questioning the things that have given his life meaning in this independent coming-of-age drama. Roy Chutney (Ryan Gosling) is a high school senior in the fictional Montana town of Blue Springs. Roy does not have an especially close relationship with his mother Evangelline (Kelly Lynch), and he has not seen his father in years. That does not prevent Roy from feeling emotionally devastated when he learns that his father has killed himself, and Roy's self-esteem takes a beating when he is cut from the high school football team shortly afterward. Roy whiles away his time by swilling beer with his best friend, Tracy Two Dogs (Eddie Spears), and falling into a romance with Skyla (Clea DuVall), a barmaid at a local tavern, but it seems that Roy's short time on the high school gridiron impressed Gideon Ferguson (David Morse (actor)), a local character who coaches an unsanctioned high school six man football team when he is not delivering newspapers or trying to score a gig singing country songs at nearby honky-tonks.