In the town of Copper Canyon, people are cashing in on an economic housing boom, and the local country club is buzzing about the investment opportunity. Once vivacious couple, Roger (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Georgie (Kyra Sedgwick), have settled into a complacent lifestyle of mediocrity where their marriage is falling apart and their children are turning away from them. Nonetheless, the desperately discontent Georgie pushes Roger into finding a way to invest in the market bubble in the hopes that their family can be saved with the money they are sure to make. When local tennis pro and part-time drug dealer, Pat (Rhys Coiro), comes to Roger for investment advice, Roger sees his opportunity. Torn by the reality that his family could be saved by this dirty money, Roger finds himself staring down the barrel of a moral conundrum.

Margot Zeller is a short story writer with a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue. On the eve of her estranged sister Pauline's wedding to unemployed musician/artist/depressive Malcolm at the family seaside home, Margot shows up unexpectedly to rekindle the sisterly bond and offer her own brand of support. What ensues is a nakedly honest and subversively funny look at family dynamics.

11-year-old Eliza is the invisible element of her family unit: her parents are both consumed with work and her brother is wrapped up in his own adolescent life. Eliza ignites not only a spark that makes her visible but one that sets into motion a revolution in her family dynamic when she wins a spelling bee. Finding an emotional outlet in the power of words and in the spiritual mysticism that he sees at work in her unparalleled gift, Eliza's father pours all of his energy into helping his daughter become spelling bee champion. A religious studies professor, he sees the opportunity as not only a distraction from his life but as an answer to his own crisis of faith. His vicarious path to God, real or imagined, leads to an obsession with Eliza's success and he begins teaching her secrets of the Kabbalah. Now preparing for the National Spelling Bee, Eliza looks on as a new secret of her family's hidden turmoil seems to be revealed with each new word she spells.