SYNOPSIS:

CYRUS McHENRY is a millennial who's sure he has it all together, but is buffeted by constant code-switching, caught between his ladder-climbing life in Chicago and his problematic Southern roots. He loves his hustle-culture job, but he’s driven by desires that look backward to the home he left behind, like the colonial house he desperately wants to buy but can’t afford. He’s also caught between his love for his brash, Gen Z girlfriend JACKIE and his disdain for her carefree, digital-nomad life. But when he resists going home for his mother’s funeral, saying it would look bad to miss work since he's up for a promotion, Jackie figures out it’s because of the hurt he can’t let go of ever since Mom abandoned their relationship when he was seven. She insists he go, driving him in her retro VW van.

At his crumbling colonial homestead on a derelict Arkansas farm, Cy fights with his cynical younger brother JERRY, but makes excuses to Jackie for the tone-deaf rants from their larger-than-life father AMOS. After an oddly brief funeral, Cy discovers Amos had Cy's mom, KATHERINE, cremated on the sly, which in Amos’ extreme religious worldview is a damnable offense. What they buried were mementos from Cy’s childhood Katherine kept, against Amos’ orders. But if she’d never stopped loving him, why’d she quit on him? And why did the man he reveres want to punish her eternally? Brushing aside Cy’s questions, Amos instead tries to lure him into moving back home, invoking tradition and "heritage."

Loving Dad’s attention, but needing answers about Mom, Cy seeks out her only friend, the elderly Native/African American ALICE. She tells him of Amos' fears of the Native ideas Katherine learned from her, and passed along to young Cy, and so he concocted a soul-crushing scheme that forced Katherine away from their sons. Cy can't believe Alice's stories, however, and when Amos ups the ante with Cy by deeding him the house, Cy chooses Dad’s narrative over hers, and makes plans to stay and take over the house.

Horrified Cy wants her to stay, too, Jackie prepares to drive back alone. In anguish, Cy begs Alice for advice, but this time she tells him to find answers his own damn self. After doing just that, he realizes that not only was Alice telling the truth, but also that the holistic vision Mom had tried to teach him is the real prize he's after—not some tone-deaf repeat of Daddy's throwback life. This gives him the backbone to confront Amos, who in turn brandishes a Civil War pistol and orders everyone off his property. Reminding Amos it’s no longer his, Cy invites him to join them all on a new path, or get the hell out of the way.

Cy’s resolve changes everything: with Jackie, as they make up and make plans; with Amos, whom Cy finally sees for what he is—a man stuck in time, trying to force the past onto the present; and with Jerry, as together they repurpose the farm into a resource promoting unity as it feeds the community, becoming the model Cy and Jackie use to spread Katherine’s vision, traveling the country as digital nomads—with direction.