A sensitive yet perceptive New York City teen wrestles with his sexuality, his prospects for the future, and severe family dysfunction in the wake of his parents' divorce in director Roberto Faenza's adaptation of the bestseller by author Peter Cameron. James (Toby Regbo) is a teenage boy with an acute eye for observation, but he lacks the social skills to get ahead in life. His future looking increasingly uncertain as his family falls apart, James watches in bemusement as his melodramatic 20-year-old sister (Deborah Ann Woll) prepares to pen her memoirs, takes advice from his quirky grandmother (Ellyn Burstyn), and discovers that some lessons are best learned with your body in motion during running sessions with his sharply observant life coach (Lucy Liu).