In Eastern rural Colorado, a town wakes up at sunrise. Tom Guthrie (Aiden Quinn) is just waking up his two young sons (Mick Hazen as Ike and Cody Arens as Bobby) for their paper route. His wife Ella (Megan Follows) is still in bed. We meet a vomiting 17-year-old teenage girl Victoria (America Ferrera) living with her mother Betty (Margo Rose) in a trailer home. High school history teacher Tom meets with the school principal (Ron Perkins as Lloyd), who gives him an ultimatum to pass the problem student Russell (Zachery Ty Bryan). High school teacher Maggie (Rachel Griffiths) arranges for the bachelor farmers to give Victoria a home. Collecting on their paper route, the two boys meet a an old lonely solitary old lady Iva (Marian Seldes) and befriend her. Tom and his boy's visit with two bachelor brothers Raymond and Harold (Geoffrey Lewis and William Andrews) running a dairy farm. When the boys come home from school, they find their mother's bedroom empty; their father is seen helping his wife move into an apartment, evidently as part of a marital separation. Tom teaches a history class when jock Russell disrupts it. While trying to counsel him in the hallway, the boy punches him in the face and runs away; for this, the boy is suspended for several days. Wife tells husband she is moving in with her sister in Denver for a while. Victoria's boyfriend Dwayne, father of her baby, shows up and she leaves with him for Denver. Dwayne throws a drunken party and the next morning Victoria takes a bus back. After dropping in to visit with the old woman they find her dead body in a chair. They decide to rescue her old horse and ride him to the dairy farm where they stay overnight. During the night, Victoria goes into labor and the brothers take her to the hospital come on leaving the boys alone temporarily. Ike wakes later and decides to just ride home. As they ride along the highway, Zachery drives by, recognizes them as their nemesis' sons, and decides to kidnap them. He drives them to a remote location, remove their clothes, throwing their shoes in the bushes, and leaves them. Luckily, someone finds them walking on the highway and brings them back to the farm. In the meantime, the boys' father confronts Zachery and he actually incriminates himself in front of a policeman. Finally, everyone, including the new baby girl, is reunited at the farm. The scene ends as they gather around a large table to enjoy a meal together.