 Set in 1974 Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Tim Dunphy is a teenage slacker and stoner who is part of a dysfunctional lower-class family which includes his widowed, ill-tempered, bigoted father, his wheelchair-bound younger brother Jackie and their one-eyed, three-legged dog. After Tim and his stoner friends get into trouble one-too many times with the law, his father sends him off to Cornhill Academy, a prep school in Cornwall, Connecticut for his senior year where Tim meets new friends and gets a new view on life and his own existence.