Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore) is a forty-year-old unmarried high school English teacher in the small town of Kingston, Pennsylvania. She shares a small apartment with two Siamese cats. No relationships. No children. Her life is uncomplicated, and she likes it that way. Though her day-to-day existence may seem dull, Linda is wildly passionate about her job: teaching the great works of literature to impressionable young minds. She’s Kingston’s answer to the Dead Poets Society, inspiring teenagers to love Shakespeare and “The Catcher in the Rye,” and helping them to discover their own creative voices. But Linda’s simple life is upended when former star pupil Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano) returns to Kingston a miserable failure after trying to make it as a playwright in New York. Linda was the one who’d encouraged Jason to follow his muse, sending him off to study theatre at NYU. Now in his 20’s, Jason is on the verge of abandoning art, pressured by his overbearing father, Dr. Tom Sherwood (Greg Kinnear), to face reality and go to law school.