Film Synopsis:

While the young scientist, Julius, steadfastly researches the asexual reproduction of worms, his natural curiosity leads him to discover some inconvenient truths about those around him. He witnesses his mother's infidelity and suspects his grandfather for the same, all while he believes he is losing his best friend Shiley to a rival named Chase. These disappointments are forefront while he also wrestles with his father's mysterious departure years ago. Julius keeps a diligent eye, but unfortunately, all of his heartbreakingly acute observation seems to prove that no solution will restore the people he cares about to their appropriate roles. How can Julius hold together a family that seems as though none of its parts can stay intact? How can he build his own romantic relationships under the shadow of rumors about his father's homosexuality?

The film immerses its viewer in a typical Texas town, home to a cast of characters that is anything but typical. From Julius' taxidermist mother Danielle to her baseball coaching boyfriend Melvin to her rugged love interest Levi, the adults responsible for Julius refuse to gracefully fall into appropriate small-town destinies. As a result, Julius watches them fall outside the traditional roles of grandparent, parent, and friend. Julius' grandfather, Alwyn, loves his dying neighbor, Betty, and cannot let her die alone to appease his wife, Fran. His mother enjoys the stability offered by Melvin, with his paper towel fortune, but she cannot give up her passionate connection to Levi in exchange for the modest rewards of stability. Finally, his best friend Shiley would like to be Julius' girlfriend, but he can't be the man she expects until he sorts out the confusion of his father's rumor- shrouded disappearance.

For a boy who would like every equation to work out as neatly as his science experiments, these character complications are torturous, and Julius frantically sets himself to the task of righting everything, despite the misinformed advice of his best friends. His efforts prove futile and only lead to his own eventual breakdown. as he throws himself from a car. Injured and feeling alone, he sets out to visit his missing father, who offers him beer and an explanation of his disappearance that is far different from the rumors of homosexuality that have complicated Julius' sense of himself. Instead, Julius finds that his father left to start an evangelical church with money that was intended for Julius' college education. Having discovered this truth, Julius returns to his home town old enough to embrace the foibles of his imperfect but fiercely loving family.

At the film's heartbreaking conclusion, Julius, Levi, and Danielle join Fran and his grandfather to mourn for a deceased Betty, and to celebrate the bonds of family that extend beyond sex, beyond small failures, and even beyond betrayal, to hold us together in a world that threatens to fall apart.