An impetuous teenage farm girl seeks freedom from her all-male household on a trip to a national dairy knowledge bowl competition, despite her overbearing brother coming along as chaperone. 

*2022 Academy Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalist.

SYNOPSIS:

Seventeen-year-old farm girl Tommi Stone has had to figure out how to become a woman all on her own since her mother left about eight years ago. This has been made more difficult by Tommi’s four pushy brothers and her passive-aggressive dad who seems to expect her to stay on the farm forever without a life of her own.

Tommi’s upcoming trip to Louisville, Kentucky for the 4-H National Dairy Bowl contest with her best friend Nichole feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity to let loose.

But when her dairy bowl team’s coach comes down with a bad case of farming-induced depression and can’t come on the trip, her controlling oldest brother William decides to step in and take over. Tommi sees she has no other choice if she wants the trip to happen, so she agrees.

William quickly asserts his influence over every second of Tommi’s free time and even tries to set her up with a guy he finds suitable. Tommi schemes with Nichole and fights back against his apparent tyranny by finding ways to party and hanging out with a cute guy named Leo whom William can’t stand.

But when Tommi stumbles onto some new information about her mother, Tommi’s schemes take a new direction. Furious at William for withholding info about their mom for years, Tommi begins to consider trying to leave her male family.

Tommi kicks ass in the early rounds of the dairy bowl contest, but it seems wildly unimportant now. After a blow-up with William, she hooks up with Leo half out of spite. Her team loses in the final round, and she learns immediately after that her depressed former coach is in the hospital for attempted suicide. Feeling that her own fate will eventually be similar if things go on this way, Tommi leaves with Leo to go try and find her mother.

But Leo isn’t all he’s cracked up to be, and Tommi ends up on the side of the road two hours away from her mother. She finds her mother’s phone number and works up the guts to call her… only to discover that her mother wants nothing to do with her. Tommi finally calls William, who has been searching frantically for her this whole time.

He comes to get her, and the two of them have a mini heart-to-heart. He tells her he’ll help her make a plan to move out and pursue her own life when she graduates.

The next day, they fly home to northern California. And Tommi overhears William make good on his promise by talking to their dad about Tommi moving away next year.